88 



AUSTRALIAN FUNGI: NOTES AND DESCRIPTIONS. 



NO. 1. 



By J. Burton Cleland, M.D., and Edwin Cheel, Botanical 

 Assistant, Botanic Gardens, Sydney. 



[Read July 11, 1918.] 



Plates IX. to XII. 



In submitting these notes and descriptions of some of 

 the higher Australian fungi, we would like to point out the 

 difficulties surrounding the identification of our species. The 

 individuals of most species vary considerably amongst them- 

 selves, and, unless there is some outstanding common feature, 

 extremes may not be recognized. Most of the fleshy species 

 alter vastly in drying, the spores being frequently the only 

 constant feat'ure. To study a species properly it is therefore 

 necessary to know it in the field, to write a full description 

 of it when fresh, to have it figured in colours, to preserve 

 specimens by drying as quickly as possibly and in formalin, 

 and to measure the spores. It is very often exceptionally 

 hard to say whether Australian species, which resemble extra- 

 Australian ones, are or are not the same. Coloured plates of 

 European species may be compared with our fresh plants or 

 with coloured drawings of them, the dry plants of both may be 

 examined sometimes side by side and their spores may be com- 

 pared, and the descriptions of fresh plants of each considered. 

 In these cases, if essentials agree, the diagnosis may be con- 

 sidered reasonably sound. We have adopted the plan of 

 referring Australian plants to European species if there seems 

 reasonable ground for considering them the same, even in the 

 absence of authentically identified dry European plants with 

 which to compare them. We, however, also add to such 

 identifications our own descriptions of the Australian plants. 

 If later the latter are found to be distinct, the error is thus 

 easily rectified, and meanwhile we prevent undue multipli- 

 cation of specific names. For the Australian higher fungi to 

 be adequately known, it is essential that coloured drawings 

 should be prepared and published of each. We. have already 

 over 150 of these, and hope that means may sometime be 

 found to make them available to the scientific public. 



We are deeply grateful to a generous benefactor of this 

 Society for enabling those in this series to be reproduced. 



The references to plates, under "colour tints noted," are 

 to those by Henri Dauthenay in "Repertoire de Couleurs 



