INTRODUCTION. 



The object of this pamphlet is to state what is known, or rather j 

 what little is known about the phalloids of Australia and New Zealand. I 

 Practically all that has been published is based on the specimens 

 now preserved at Kew and the British Museum which were originally I 

 studied by Berkeley. Excepting what he wrote, now forty or fifty 

 years ago, little has been written on the subject. It was brought \ 

 together in Cooke's Handbook of Australian Fungi, but the account 

 is quite inaccurate, and I think it well to present the subject in the: 

 light of the recent knowledge of phalloids. While very little has been | 

 added to our knowledge of Australian phalloids since Berkeley's daw 

 in other portions of the world the phalloids have become much better: 

 known. While we have but little additional material from Australasia 1 

 with which to work, we can consider it in the light of what has since 

 been learned of phalloids, many of them the same species, from other 

 countries. In this pamphlet we shall not endeavor to give technical 

 descriptions of Australian phalloids. We shall indicate the species! 

 that are reputed to be Australian, with running remarks on their his-j 

 tory and such evidence as exists in Europe regarding them. We shall 

 reproduce the figures that have been made, and after all a figure isi 

 the best description that can be given of a phalloid. 



There are at Kew forty-five collections of Australasian phalloids;) 

 at the British Museum there are six, not counting the duplicates of 

 collections at Kew ; at the Museum of Paris four, making a total of' 

 fifty-five collections. These ar ; e practically all there are in Europe! 

 and it is needless to say that the phalloid flora of a country embrac-j 

 ing more than three million square miles is not well known from 

 fifty-five -collections. Of the thirty- four species and forms supposed 

 to occur in Australia ten are represented by a single collection am] 

 sixteen are known only from descriptions and figures, and of most oi 

 them probably no specimens exist. 



