Notes on Fossil Fungi. 5 1 
of the structure of the wall are obscure, though there is some 
slight ground for believing the pocket to have possessed a lining of 
hyphae. The state of affairs figured here, of spore-like bodies 
arising from hyphae, is brought forward with some reserve, as this 
stage has only been seen in a single instance. 
When all the facts are taken into consideration, the distribution 
% 
and form of the sacs, the smallness of the spores, and the ill- 
preserved character of the tissues generally in these specimens, 
there would appear little room for doubt as to the fungal nature of 
the pockets. What may have been the affinities of the fungus and 
its relations to recent parasitic fungi are questions that must be 
reserved till our knowledge of the Palaeozoic Fungi is more com¬ 
prehensive than at present. 
On certain supposed Chytridineous Sporangia. 
The other fungi receiving mention here come from the same 
horizon and present a close resemblance with Grilletia Sphaerosperinii 
described by Renault and Bertrand 1 . The latter was met with in 
the peripheral layers of the nucellus of the seed Spliaerospermum in 
which hyphae and strings of sporangium-like vesicles suggested a 
reference to the Chytridineae. This same type of vesicle has been 
found in considerable quantity in Brongniart’s seed Polylopho- 
spermum, occupying the same position as in Renault and Bertrand’s 
example. The beak-like processes represented in two of the vesicles 
of the series of three in fig. 6 and in fig. 6a, marks, no doubt, the 
place of dehiscence. Though this specimen is less complete than 
that described by the French authors, for the hyphal threads are 
not preserved, there seems little doubt as to its identity. Fungal 
structures of this kind occurring in the wall of the nucellus of 
palaeozoic seeds were not limited to this particular horizon, as 
almost identical structures have been observed in a specimen of the 
seed Conostoma from the calciferous sandstone series of Burnt 
Island in Scotland (Lower Carboniferous). The vesicles of the 
Grilletia from Polylophospermum vary in diameter from 25/x to 40a. 
They appear to have been approximately spherical in form, whilst 
dehiscence occurred by rupture at the tip of the beak rather than 
by the removal of an operculum. This was inferred in the case of 
MM. Renault and Bertrand’s specimens from the fact that many of 
the sporangia had opened at this point. 
Another example of possible Chytridineous sporangia is that of 
1 Renault and Bertrand, Grilletia Sphaerosperinii, Cliytridiacee 
fossile du terrain liouiller superieur. Coniptes Rendns, 
tom 100, p. 1306. 
