NAME Palaeomycites carbonarius
AGE Late Pennsylvanian.   AGE span: 307.2...299 mya
K&J CLASSIFICATION (2000) Chytridiomycetes, Chytridiales; or: Zygomycetes, Endogonales; or: Oomycetes, Peronosporales.
FIGURE(S)
Image of
Pl.20fig.6.jpg
FIGURE REFERENCE Elias MK. 1966. Living and fossil algae and fungi, formerly known as structural parts of marine bryozoans; The Palaeobotanist, v. 14 (1965), p. 5-18.
SPECIES, AUTHORITY P. carbonarius (Elias) Kalgutkar & Jansonius 2000
LOCATION Upper part of Missouri series, near South Bend, Nebraska, USA.
ORIG DESCRIPTION* Hyphae 10-20 µm long, straight to slightly bent or curved, unbranching, with uniformly thin wall, thicker at maturity. Occasional rhythmic vacuolation in vegetative hyphae (fig. 13). Typical apical papillae (fig. 12 below, fig. 14) are comparable to "normal papilla" in Pythium helicoides, which are 2 1/2 times as long as wide (Middleton, 1943, p. 78, fig. 6-C), fig. 23.

Oogonia-like reproductive bodies are intercalating to subapical in hyphae (figs. 17-18), somewhat angular when young (fig. 13), becoming spherical when reaching maturity (figs. 12c, 16-18). A possible antheridium (fig. 12a) is developed in a hypha which bears no oogonium.

Only one cytoplasm-filled oospore was observed (fig 12c). The spherical bodies in the cytoplasm are of varied diameter and are apparently homologous to "reserve globules" and "refringent bodies", so described in four "exceptional" species of Pythium by Middleton (in Tomkins et al., 1939, p. 6; also 1943, figs. 6-7), figs. 25, 79.
COMMENTS* Propythium carbonarium differs from the Peronosporites antiquarius, the nearest to it among the fossil Pythiaceae, by the absence of branching, the absence of transverse septa under oogonia-like bodies, and by intercalated development of some of them. It is decidedly more primitive than the latter, and it differs from the only known marine species of Pythium, P. marinum Sparrow (1943), by straighter and unbranching hyphae, and the absence of the transverse septa under oogonia-like bodies and of appressoria.

Common in mature (cortical) region of upper Carboniferous bryozoan "Batostomella" polyspinosa (Condra) Girty, together with rarely occurring Prochamaesiphon geitleri Elias.
PUBLICATION REFERENCE Elias MK. 1966. Living and fossil algae and fungi, formerly known as structural parts of marine bryozoans; The Palaeobotanist, v. 14 (1965), p. 5-18.
K&J REMARKS If the collection of line drawings by Elias can be taken as different aspects of a single organism, they together represent the holotype, and the generic name must be considered as validly published by him in 1966. If they are considered as a collection of syntypes, publication was validated by Jansonius & Hills (1979) by their selection of a lectotype. Kalgutkar and Jansonius (2000) accept the earlier date.

By transferring its type species to Palaeomycites, Kalgutkar and Jansonius (2000) make Propythium a younger taxonomic synonym of that genus.
TYPE Propythium carbonarium Elias 1966 , p. 11, fig. 14 [lectotype selected, from a gathering of line drawings, by Jansonius & Hills (1979), card no. 3593].
ALL NAMES (Including synonyms) Propythium carbonarium Elias 1966 , p. 11, fig. 14.; Palaeomycites carbonarius
SERIAL NUMBER 1210
PUBLIC COMMENTS
 *For source, see Publication Reference.