9 PERMIAN FOSSILS. 
Of the three groups or sub-classes (Algales, Fungales, and Jnchinales,) 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 England 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 Fucus crispus of Linnzeus, a species common on every 
part of the British coasts. 
CuonpRrus (?) BINNEYI, Avng. Plate I, fig. 1. 
“LITTLE CIRCULAR 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 capsules alluded to. 
' Dr. Lindley applies the term “ Alliance” to what are in the text named Swb-classes. 
? Lindley, The Vegetable Kingdom, p. 8, 1847. 
® Greville, Algze Britannice, p. 126, 1830. 
