tiie 
NEW PHYTOliOGIST. 
Vol. 2., No. 3. March 30TH, 1903. 
NOTES ON FOSSIL FUNGI. 
By F. W. Oliver. 
O F the various classes of plants of which structural remains are 
known from the Palaeozoic rocks, the Fungi would seem to 
have been the least fully studied. And this is hardly surprising in 
view of the attractions to investigation which the vascular plants 
offer. Some day, skilled mycologists will direct their attention to 
this promising field of study and we shall be able to realise, as we 
now do in the case of the Pteridophytes and Gym nosperms, what 
were the relations of the fungus-flora of that period to the group 
as it now exists. Meanwhile it is possible, as in the present 
instance, to place on record detached observations concerning some 
stage in a life-history. The present notes deal with two types of 
reproductive organ, both of which have been noticed by the French 
Palaeobotanists. 
A Fungus on the pinnules of Alethopteris aquilina, Schlotheim. 
* 
The first case to which attention is drawn is that of the curious 
ovoid pockets occasionally met with in the pinnules of Alethopteris 
aquilina. The fern-like foliage which has received this name is 
regarded as having belonged to one of the Medullosas, and as the 
constant lack of sori on these and many other fronds of the older 
rocks has tended to strengthen the suspicion that these plants may 
have borne reproductive organs unlike those of true Ferns, a close 
scrutiny is desirable of any structure which might be construed as 
a possible sporangium. The pinnules of Alethopteris aquilina are 
quite common in the silicified nodules of permo-carboniferous age 
at Grand ’Croix, whence the specimens under consideration were 
derived. 
The pockets in question (diameter about •2 mm.) were described 
by Renault 1 as lying between the forkings of the lateral veins of the 
1 Renault: Corns debot. fossile III, 1883, pp. i59-'6o and PL 
xxvii, fig. 10. 
