269 
wonderful richness of vegetation, might be expected to produce a 
greater or less number of species. As a matter of fact, however, they 
have so far been very rarely found in this formation, and it seems doubt¬ 
ful whether some of those that have been described as fungi are really 
such. Perhaps the preponderance of ferns, lycopods, and similar forms 
may partly explain the absence of parasitic fungi, for we know that these 
plants in our days are rarely attacked by them. The peculiar con¬ 
ditions of deposition of the coal also militate against the preservation 
of saprophytic forms. Experiments made by Lindley about 1835 to 
ascertain the probability of plants being preserved in water show that 
of 3 species of woody fungi only shapeless masses remained at the 
end of two years.* In Cretaceous and Tertiary times, when the 
higher types of dicotyledons predominated, parasitic species are more 
likely to occur, and here they are not uncommon. In the following 
notes upon some of the species described as fungi aud occuring in 
the older geological formations an endeavor has been made to ascertain 
their actual position. 
The earliest described species, supposed to be a fungus, to which ref¬ 
erence has been found was named by Lindley and Hutton in 1831, 
Polyporites howmanni. f The authors considered it doubtful whether it 
really belonged to the vegetable kingdom, but they compared it with 
certain fungi having a hymenium, like Boletus , Polyporus , etc. In 1877 
Lesquereuxf referred to the species and discussed its nature, stating 
that a specimen somewhat similar had been found in the anthra¬ 
cite Coal Measures near Pottsville, Pa. It did not, however, throw 
any light upon the true nature of the fossil. It is compared to 
certain shaly fragments colored in concentric zones by iron, and which 
occur in the Tertiary lignite of the Pocky Mountains. Finally, in 1889 
William Carrutliers stated that instead of its being a fungus it had 
been ascertained to be the scale of a ganoid fish. § Thus Polyporites 
howmanni was at last disposed of. 
In 1869 Hancock and Atthey published a paper “On some curious 
fossil fungi from the black shale of the Northumberland coal field.’ 7 1| 
They stated that in the interior of certain lenticular bodies they 
found numbers of ramifying tubes. They were not calcareous, and 
were considered to be fungi. A comparison was made with Scle- 
rotium stipitatum B. & C., 1862, and the statement made Jthat the de¬ 
scription of that species would fit one of the fossil forms very well. 
Some of the lenticular bodies appear homogeneous, but this is consid¬ 
ered merely apparent.^ Occasional oval, spore-like bodies were found 
in the threads, and scattered through the substance of the fungus. In 
* Fossil Flora of Great Britain, by Lindley and Hutton, Vol. ill, 1837, p. 5. 
tLoc. cit., Vol. i, p. 185, pi. 65. 
IProc. Am. Phil. Soc., Vol. xvii, 1877, p. 173. 
§Proc. of the Geol. Asso., Vol. xi, London, 1889, p. xxi. 
|| Ann. &, Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., Vol. iv, 1869, pp. 221-228, pis. ix, x. 
Out of 126 sections made, 16 appeared homogeneous. 
16186—No. 3——6 
