Berry : Remarkable Fossil Fungi 
75 
best preserved fungus thus far discovered. It is true that this 
Oligocene species is very similar to the type figures of Perono- 
sporites antiquaria Worthington Smith* but his figures are evi- 
dently idealized from his knowledge of recent fungi, if reliance 
can be placed on Seward’s statement® that “ Prof. Williamson and 
others have carefully examined the specimens, but they have 
failed to detect any trace of reproductive cells enclosed in the 
spherical sacs.” Whether this does or does not do an injustice to 
the original describer of Peronosporites antiqiiarius I am unable 
to state, but feel disposed to give full weight to Seward’s state- 
ment since this form has been found to be quite abundant in the 
scalariform tissues of Lcpidodendron and both Cash and Hick^ 
and Williamson® have described similar material. The latter 
author states that an examination of Srhith’s type as well as ad- 
ditional slides failed to show any oospores or any septation of the 
hyphae and he states that its botanical relations are with the Sapro- 
legnieae and not with the Peronosporaceae. 
A form very similar to the English species has been described 
from the French coal measures as Palaeomyces by Renault,®^ and 
Coulter and Land^ have recently figured what appear to be an- 
Coulter and Land, Bot. Gaz. vol. 51, 1911, p. 452, figs. 21—23. 
theridia and oogonia which they found in rootlets that had pene- 
trated a Lepidostrobus cone from the Carboniferous of Warren 
County, Iowa. Jeffrey® has described and figured a fungus found 
in the Tertiary lignites of Brandon, Vermont, which he calls 
Sclerotites hrandonianus and which while he interprets it as a 
sclerotium stage, is not unlike Peronosporoides palmi, although it 
occurs in dicotyledonous instead of monocotyledonous wood and 
is not nearly as well preserved as the latter species. 
To avoid any possible errors of representation, I have therefore 
2 Gardeners Chronicle, vol. 8, 1877, p. 499. 
® Fossil Plants, 1898, p. 218. 
* Cash and Hick, On fossil fungi from the Lower Coal-Measures of Hali- 
fax. Proc. Yorkshire Geol. Polyt. Soc., vol. 7, 1878, p. 115. 
5 Williamson, W. C. Philos. Trans. Roy. Soc., vol. 172, 1881, p. 300, pi. 
48, figs. 36-38; pi. 54, figs. 28-33. 
® Bassin houiller et permien d’Autun et d’Epinac, Fasc. IV, 2e partie, 1896, 
PP* 439, 441, figs. 88, 89, 90. 
* Jeffrey, E. C., Geol. Surv. Vermont, Rept. from 1905-1906, p. 200. 
