21 



2.— THE HYMENOGASTRACE^ OF TASMANIA. 

 PI. III. 



By Leonard Kodway, Government Botanist. 

 (Read April 10, 1911.) 



The researches of systematic botanists in Avistralia 

 have been chiefly directed to elucidate the members of the 

 more conspicuoiis phyla. Inquiry into' the Flowering 

 plants, Gymnosperms. Pterydophyta, Biyophyta, and the 

 larger marine Algse has steadily progressed, though many 

 forms belonging to most of these groups yet remain to be 

 discovered and described. But when we come to the im- 

 portant gi'oups of the freshwater AlgcC and the Fungi' 

 we find information still in a very backward condition. 

 There have been few workers in these groups a^nd of these 

 very few who have really specialised them. Most of the 

 v/ork has been done by students of the higher plants, who 

 could nob resist the temptation of collecting peculiar fungi 

 they met with a^id sending them to Europe, whei'e from 

 time to time they have been recorded. The only works 

 available to Australian students where a, general review of 

 the fungi has been attempted ha.ve been Hooker's "Flora 

 Tasmanise" and Cooke's "Australian Fungi." Besides 

 these, McAlpine has. published a, classified list of Australiari 

 Fungi, and in the Royal Society's .proceedings for 1897 

 appears a classified list of Tasmanian Fungi by myself. 

 The freshwater Algae of Australia have not yet had the 

 advantage of even a classified list. 



The publication of Cooke's "Australian Fungi'' is 

 really the first and only general account of the group, and 

 stands as a base from which we could make further ad- 

 Vance. There was no pretence that this book included 

 even the majority of Australian species. It was published 

 a-s a compilation of species known to date, with a full re- 

 cognition of its incompleteness as a Handbook of Australian 

 Fungi. Numbers of new species have been published 

 since its appearance, and everyone who has made a study 

 of this interesting group is well aware that the number of 

 species yet to be described will probably run into thou- 

 sands. 



