2 PERMIAN POSSILS. 



Of the three groups or sub-classes {Algales, Fungales, and LicJdnales,) into which 

 the Thallogens are divided, the first is the only one of which any remains have been 

 found in the Permian rocks. 



Sub-class Algales, Lindley.^ 



Diagnosis. — ^" Cellular flowerless plants, nourished through their whole surface by 

 the medium in which they vegetate ; living in water or very damp places ; propagated 

 by zoospores, coloured spores, or tetraspores."" 



The sea-weeds found in the Permian rocks of E ngland are so imperfectly preserved 

 that it is difficult to define them generically. It is probable that some of them belong 

 to extinct or undefined genera, but until they are better known, it is considered the 

 safest plan to place them in those established generic groups to which they offer the 

 strongest resemblance. 



Genus Chondrus, Stackhouse. 



Diagnosis. — " Frond cartilaginous, dilating upwards into a flat, nerveless, dicho- 

 tomously divided frond, of a purplish or livid red colour ; fructification subspherical 

 capsules in the substance of the frond (rarely supported on little stalks), and containing 

 a mass of minute free seeds."^ 



The type of this genus is the Fums crispus of Linnaeus, a species common on every 

 part of the British coasts. 



Chondrus (?) Binneyi, King. Plate I, fig. 1. 



"Little cikculae bodies, resembling the casts of a very small Ammonite," 

 Binney. Trans. Manch. Geol. Soc, vol. i, p. 56, 1839. 



The specimen figured is the only one known to the writer. It belongs to a species 

 which appears to have had a somewhat broad frond, with numerous closely-crowded, 

 sessile seed-vessels. In one or two places the seed-vessels are so closely approximated 

 as to have assumed a polygonal form, which shows that they have been of a yielding 

 substance. Mr. Binney, to whom the discovery of this interesting fossil is due, found 

 it in the Red Marl at Newton, near Manchester. The " little circular bodies" noticed 

 above are the caps-ales alluded to. 



' Dr. Lindley applies the term " Alliance" to what are in the text named Sub-classes. 



2 Lindley, The Vegetable Kingdom, p. 8, 1847. 



3 Greville, Algse Britannicse, p. 126, 1830. 



