NAME Caenomyces
AGE    AGE span:  mya
K&J CLASSIFICATION (2000) Ascomycetes?, Pyrenomycetes?
FIGURE(S)
FIGURE REFERENCE
SPECIES, AUTHORITY Caenomyces Berry 1916b, p. 162.
LOCATION
ORIG DESCRIPTION* ORIGINAL DIAGNOSIS: I propose the term Caenomyces as a form genus for leaf-spot fungi of Cenozoic age whose precise botanic affinities cannot be precisely determined.
COMMENTS* The presence of spots of different shapes on the leaves of fossil plants is exceedingly common, and a large number of so-called species of fossil leaf-spot fungi have been described by Ettingshausen, Heer, Saporta, and others. These species are referred for the most part to the genera Sphaeria, Phacidium, Sclerotia, Hysterium, ... and the like. A large list of such forms was published by Meschinelli in 1892. All these determinations are based entirely on superficial similarities between the fossil and some modern leaf-spot fungus, of which there are thousands of species, most of them distinguishable only by their methods of reproduction or the morphology of their reproductive parts.

The identification of these fossil forms obviously rests on a very insecure foundation, especially when it is recalled that scale insects and a great variety of insect galls would resemble epiphyllous fungi when preserved on impressions of fossil leaves. Nevertheless, large numbers of undoubted fungi are preserved in this manner, and it is the legitimate duty of the paleobotanist to describe and illustrate them.

I do not propose to burden the literature with any large number of new forms nor to make any new combinations by referring species which other authors have described as Sphaeria and the like to this new genus, but I shall use [the new genus] in my own studies of Tertiary floras where well-marked remains of this sort require commemoration either because of special geologic or biologic interest.
PUBLICATION REFERENCE Berry EW. 1916. The lower Eocene floras of southeastern North America; United States Geological Survey, Professional Paper 91, 481 p.
K&J REMARKS Kalgutkar and Jansonius (2000) include the name of this genus in their synopsis, with its diagnosis of the genus, and descriptions of the assigned species. However, Kalgutkar and Jansonius (2000) refrained from providing figures of these species, as the details, needed for positive identification, were too indistinct to allow them to make instructive diagrams or graphic representations of the species Berry photographed and described.
TYPE TYPE: None designated.
ALL NAMES (Including synonyms) Caenomyces;
SERIAL NUMBER 141
PUBLIC COMMENTS
 *For source, see Publication Reference.