Notes and Comments. 245 
FOSSIL FUNGI. 
It might be imagined at first sight that such evanescent 
things as fungi would not be found fossil, but in Knowledge 
for April, Dr. David Ellis shows that this is very far from being 
the case. In some instances, even the delicate fungal threads 
can be distinguished, as they have been replaced, particle by 
particle, by some durable substance, such for instance as oxide 
of iron or calcite. In many cases, however, we get imprints 
of fungi on fossil leaves and stems; in others, again, the 
threads, or spawn, of parasitic forms are found in the substance 


.. . 
Phycomycites frodinghamii. x 8oo0. 
(a) Fully developed sporangia, with attached hypha (c). 
(6) Young sporangium. 
(c) Hypha which supports the sporangium (a). 
of fossil trees; while some very beautiful examples are pre- 
served, as insects are, in amber. Dr. Ellis illustrates his 
remarks by photographs of Phycomycites frodinghamiu, from 
the Iron-stone of Frodingham; one of which we are kindly 
permitted to reproduce. 
Oks 


We should like to congratulate the Hon. Treasurer of the Yorkshire 
Naturalists’ Union, Mr. E. Hawkesworth, on being elected a member of 
the Leeds City Council. 
In The Journal of the Board of Agriculture for June, Mr. A. Roebuck 
describes ‘A Bad» Attack by the Mustard Beetle on Watercress,’ in 
Shropshire. 
A letter from Essex ordering roo tons of chalk, in an envelope with 
the type-written address, ‘ J. W. Shepherd, Gotham,’ was recently safely 
delivered to the curator of a Yorkshire Museum. Apparently the 
“Gotham ’ misled the postal authorities. 


1916 Aug. 1. 
