250 General Notes. [ April, 
A Fossit Funcus.—One of the most interesting recent dis- 
antiquarius. Fossil Fyngi were not previously altogether un- 
nown. Some years ago Mr. Carruthers, the keeper of the bo- 
tanical department in the British Museum, detected mycelial 
threads among the cells of a fossil fern (Osmunda) from the Lower 
eocene strata of Herne bay ; an r. Darwin has stated that fun- 
gus threads in a fossil state in silicified wood were shown to him 
more than forty years ago, by Mr. Robert Brown. Messrs. Han- 
cock and Asthey have also déscribed in the Azmals and Magazine 
of Natural History (4th ser. vol. iv, 1869, p. 221, t. ix, x), under 
the name of Archigaricon, what may be a fossil Peronosporites 
from the Crawlington black shale.. The specimen examined by 
Mr. Worthington Smith (the fungoid nature of the organism 
having been first suggested by M. Carruthers) was seen within 
the vascular axis of a Lepidodendron, and is thus described 
by that gentleman :—It consists of a mass of mycelia and zo- 
osporangia (or oogonia). Beginning with mycelium, a close ex- 
amination shows that it is furnished with numerous joints or septa. 
If, therefore, any reliance is to be placed upon the modern distin- 
guishing characters of the now living species of the genera Peronos- 
pora and Pythium, as furnished by a septate or non-septate myce- 
lium, the fossil parasite belongs to the former, and not to the latter 
_ genus, nor to any of the Saproleginee. The oogonia do not agree 
with those of Cystopus. Within many of the fossil oogonia the 
differentiation of the protoplasm into zoospores is clearly seen ; 
but if any doubt could exist as to the exact nature of this differ- 
entiation, then other oogonia (or zoosporangia) on the same slide 
show the contained zoospores with a clearness not to be exceeded 
by any living specimens of the present time. It is a very remark- 
able fact that the oogonium precisely resembles, in size and other 
characters, average oogonia of the present day, especially those 
belonging to Peronospora infestans. The contained zoospores are, 
moreover, the same in form and dimensions with those of Z. 7% gst- 
ans when measured to the ten-thousandth of an inch. The or- 
ganisms are in fact apparently identical; and the average number 
of zoospores in each oogonium is also the same, viz.: seven OF 
eight. The aérial condition of the fungus has not been observed. 
= Mr. Worthington Smith suggests, in conclusion, that we proba- 
bly have in Peronosporites antiquarius one of the primordial plants _ 
from which both the great families of Fungi and Algze may poss" 
bly have descended, There is no doubt that the Peronosporee an 
Saproleginee are very closely allied ; and yet the former are com 
monly placed among Fungi, the latter among Alga ; and we may 
possibly here have the point of departure from which the two 
= families branched out—A. W. Bennett. 
