388 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 



6.— A REVIEW OF THE FUNGUS-BLIGHTS WHICH 

 HAVE BEEN OBSERVED TO INJURE LIVING 

 VEGETATION IN THE COLONY OF QUEENS- 

 LAND. 



By F. M. BAILEY, F.L.S., Government Botanist of Queensland. 



Perhaps no order of the vegetable kingdom has been more 

 carefully studied than Fungi. Several of the most learned of 

 botanists have spent the greater part of their lives in investigat- 

 ing plants of this curious and perplexing order, and it is from 

 their labours that we at the present day are enabled to obtain 

 some insight into the hfe history of forms which only a few 

 years ago were hidden in obscurity. This has been more 

 particularly the case with those forms of fungi designated 

 " blights," and it is to plants of this class which have been 

 seen to infest living vegetation in Queensland that I would 

 at the present time draw attention. 



I do not wish, to pose as a noted mycologist, yet, having 

 been the principal collector of these plants in Queensland, 

 and also having by word and letter been the means of 

 inducing others to collect, all of whose gatherings as they 

 come to my hands I have forwarded with notes to European 

 specialists, it may not be deemed presumptuous if I offer 

 some few notes on a portion of the order, particularly as by 

 the means I have adopted a very large mass of material has 

 accumulated, and at the present this is being utilised by that 

 pre-eminent mycologist, Dr. M. C. Cooke, in a work he has 

 undertaken to prepare on the Australian Fungi, the various 

 Australian Governments having jointly furnished funds to 

 meet the expense of printing, illustrating, &c. 



Although it is not my intention to refer to any colony but 

 Queensland in this paper, yet, in noticing the work now in 

 progress by Dr. Cooke, it is but just to pay the compliment 

 of a reference to the indefatigable labours of Mrs. W. 

 Martin, of Melbourne, who for the past ten or twelve years 

 has done such good work in this field for Victoria, more par- 

 ticularly in that section called " blights," 



I will begin my remarks by pointing out that there are a 

 number of fungi which are thought to be blights, because 

 they may at times, in certain localities where the circumstances 

 are favourable to their development, be seen growing upon 

 living trees or shrubs, but upon a closer inspection it will be 

 observed that these are developed, not upon the living por- 

 tions of the plants, but upon some exudation or dead matter, 



