THE FOSSIL FUNGI OF THE PRINCETON CHERT

The middle Eocene Princeton chert locality in southern British Columbi a, Canada, contains one of the best-preserved permineralized Tertiary floral assemblages known in North America. The quality of preservation of the vascular plant and fungal remains is exquisite because anatomi cal and morphological features have been preserved at the cellular lev el. Past studies indicate the vascular flora is rich in species divers ity and abundance and includes the in situ remains of semiaquatic and aquatic plant communities. Our initial assessment of the fungi in this assemblage indicates a diverse fungal community had developed and tha t many of the component species are comparable to modern taxa. Fossil fungi include unilocular and multilocular stromatoid fructifications o n leaves and fruits. These are comparable to three extant representati ves of the Dothideales or eustromatic Coelomycetes of the Fungi Imperf ecti. Two of these contain septate conidia but no ascospores. The thir d lacks spores but resembles the loculoascomycete genus Mycosphaerella in size and structure of the uniloculate stromata. Fossil representat ives of the Hyphomycetes include a seed-borne sclerotic fungus similar to Alternaria and, in the rhizomes of an aquatic plant, Cercospora-li ke conidia along with moniliform cells that resemble those formed by t he genus Rhizoctonia. The teliospores of an anthericolous smut are pre sent in the anthers of an unidentified flower. This fungus is most sim ilar to Microbotryum violaceum, a smut fungus that occurs in the anthe rs of Caryophyllaceae. The continuing study of the Princeton Chert is allowing us to better understand the role of these, and other, fungal constituents in early Tertiary semiaquatic/aquatic plant communities.