Indian Fossil Fungi

Abstract

The main objective of this publication is to synthesize the available information on Indian fossil fungi published so far. It contains four main parts, Introduction, Terminology, Description and Discussion. The introductory part provides a brief account of diversity of fungal remains through the ages, scope and organization of the publication and classification of fossil fungal spores and fruiting bodies. The Terminology part defines the commonly used terms for describing fungal remains. The Description part provides description of all the fossil fungal taxa known so far from India along with their illustration, locality, age and Indian records. MycoBank number of each genus and species is also provided. Fifteen new species, viz. Dicellaesporites classicus, Dicellaesporites jainii, Dicellaesporites singhii, Foveoletisporonites keralensis, Frasnacritetrus masolensis, Fusiformisporites barmerensis, Inapertisporites chandrae, Inapertisporites karii, Inapertisporites sahii, Kutchiathyrites mehrotrae, Monoporisporites meghalayaensis, Multicellites chandrae, Pluricellaesporites himachalensis, Pluricellaesporites keralensis and Pluricellaesporites mehrotrae and twelve new combinations, viz. Kutchiathyrites perfectus (Kar et al.), Meliolinites tlangsamensis (Kar et al.), Multicellites circularis (Samant and Tapaswi), Multicellites himalayaensis (Gupta), Multicellites jainii (Gupta), Multicellites psilatus (Saxena), Multicellites ramanujamii (Gupta), Multicellites reticulatus (Samant and Tapaswi), Palaeomycites dichotomus (Kar et al.), Palaeomycites excellensus (Kar et al.), Palaeomycites globatus (Sharma et al.) and Palaeomycites minutus (Kar et al.) have been proposed. This part also records informally published fungal remains along with reference to page of their publication, illustration, horizon and age and location of occurrence. The Discussion part includes diagnostic characteristics of fossil fungal spores and fruiting bodies, general remarks on Indian fossil fungal records and stratigraphic and palaeoclimatic interpretations.