THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 43 



NOTE ON THE FUNGI OF KERGUELEN ISLAND. 



By D. M'Alpine, 



(Read hefore the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, Vdth June, 1898.^ 



The specimens of fungi obtained at Kerguelen Island by Air. 

 Robt. Hall were handed to me for determination by Mr. J. G. 

 Luehmann, F.L.S., Curator of the National Herbarium. I need 

 hardly point out that both the flora and fauna of oceanic islands 

 are of great interest in connection with the problems of geo- 

 graphical distribution, and this Antarctic Iceland, as it has been 

 called, has received the attention of distinguished naturalists. 

 The fungus-flora alone might not add much to our knowledge, but, 

 taken in conjunction with other forms of vegetation with which 

 they are associated, they serve at least to show what forms are 

 capable of inhabiting these latitudes at present. 



Previous Collections of Fungi. — Five scientific expeditions 

 have visited the island within comparatively recent times — the 

 Antarctic under Sir James Ross (1840), the Challenger under Sir 

 George Nares (1874), and three Transit of Venus expeditions 

 (1874-75) — and it is to them we owe our present scanty knowledge 

 of the fungi of this island. A list is given in the "Transactions of 

 the Royal Society, London," vol. clxviii. (1879), and probably all 

 the then known species are there recorded. Nine species have been 

 described, distributed among seven genera, viz. : — Galen^ 

 Tubaria, Naucoria, Agaricus, Coprinus, Lachnea, and Clado- 

 sporium. 



Mr. Hall's Collection. — There are ten species of fungi rep- 

 resented altogether, exclusive of bacteria, distributed among as 

 many genera, and all of them are determinable, from tlie fairly 

 good state of preservation in which they were. It is very credit- 

 able indeed to Mr. Hall, that after such distinguished naturalists 

 as Sir Joseph Hooker, Moseley, and Eaton had visited the island, 

 he should have succeeded not only in collecting several species 

 unobserved by them, but in securing more species than the total 

 number previously known. He was there from 27th December, 

 1 897, to iStli February, 1898, or a little over seven weeks altogether. 



Five species are among those previously recorded, and the 

 remaining five are new to the island, belonging to the genera 

 Panaeolus, Aspergillus, Penicillium, Fusarium, and Alternaria. 

 Three of these are so cosmopolitan that they have probably 

 been introduced by the sealers who occasionally visit the island, 

 and two are new to science. As these will be described and 

 illustrated elsewhere, it is only necessary to state that one of 

 them is a minute Panaeolus, less than half an inch in height, and 

 the other is a salmon-pink Fusarium. 



