ON FOSSIL FUNGI. 323 



presumptive evidence as to the probability of their being of vege- 

 table origin."''' 



Indeed that they are so does not admit of a doubt. If there 

 were no other evidence of the fact, it is demonstrated by their 

 organic structure. Originally, as already stated, v^e took this 

 organic structure (the tubular ramifications) to be a parasitic 

 fungus, and the substance in which it Avas imbedded to be wood. 

 And assuredly the tubular ramifications resemble very closely 

 those of the unicellular fungi before alluded to, many species of 

 which we have in our possession. The size and general cha- 

 racter of the tubes, the mode of ramification, and particularly 

 their bulbous enlargements, all agree very well with what we 

 observe in these peculiar bodies. But there is one important 

 difference : while, in the unicellular fungi, the tubes never sink 

 deep into the substance in which they are lodged, ramifying 

 immediately below its surface, those of the lenticular bodies, 

 though they are connected with the periphery, permeate the 

 entire mass. Our recent investigations, however, compel us 

 to the conclusion that the whole, including the substance in 

 which the tubes ramify, is but one organism, and that it is a 

 fungus of a peculiar nature, related apparently in structure, and 

 to some extent in form, to Sclerotium stipitatum., a very curious 

 and abnormal species from India, described by Messrs. Berkeley 

 and Currey in the " Transactions of the Linnean Society" (1862, 

 Vol. XXIII., pp. 91 & 93). The internal structure of this living 

 species is so similar to that of some of the coal-fungi in question, 

 that, were it fossilized, it would assuredly be considered one of 

 them. " The mass consists," says the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, 

 "of very irregular, swollen, and sometimes constricted, more or 

 less anastomosing, and more or less densely compacted threads." 

 These words might be used to describe the tubes of Archagaricon 

 coiif/lomeratum., one of our fossil fungi described in the sequel. 



We have in our possession a section of Sclerotium stijjitatum, 

 and, after carefully examining it, we can find no important dif- 

 ference distinguishing it from sections of our coal-fungi. The 



* Some tvcconiit of those lenticular bodies lins recently been f;-iven, in " Scientific Opin- 

 ion," by Blr. T. P. Barkas, who supposed them to lie fish-otolites. 



