INTRODUCTION. 
Xlll 
Australian species, only 31 are European, and these are mostly 
widely- diffused species. Of the total of Australian species of 
the Hymenomycetes, now fixed at 1,174, we only recognize about 
332 as exclusively Australian, which, with the 472 European 
species, make 804 accounted for, leaving 370 species as common 
to Australia, and some other country, exclusive of Europe, 
some being found in New Zealand, Ceylon, Cuba, the United 
States, and South America. 
The classification adopted by Fries, in his “ Systema Myco- 
logicum,” published in 1822, and amplified in his “ Summa 
Vegetabilia” of 1846, was still imperfect and unsatisfactory, 
inasmuch as it ignored all microscopical characters, and no 
complete system was offered in its place until Professor 
Saccardo commenced his “ Sylloge ” in 1882. It is, therefore, 
to this latter work, with some modifications, that we have 
resorted in the compilation of the present volume. The large 
order of Hymenomycetes are not essentially different in their 
arrangement from the Friesian method, although Saccardo has 
raised all the subgenera of Agaricus to the rank of genera, with 
which we are not prepared to coincide, and then altered their 
sequence so as to bring them into four groups, according to the 
colour of the spores. On the contrary, we have retained the 
genus Agaricus intact, with its subgenera, which is succeeded 
by the other genera of Agaricini, as in the “ Hymenomycetes 
Europsei ” of Fries, and so on to the end. In some few instances 
now genera are interpolated, or old ones transposed, as we think 
with good reason, especially in the Tremellini ; and the large 
genus Polyporus has been divided according to the method pro- 
posed by Fries himself in his “ Nova; Symbol®.” In all these 
instances we are in accord with Saccardo. 
In the Gasteromycetes we have almost followed the “ Sylloge,” 
except in one or two points, such as the suppression of 
Mycenastrum, and the arrangement of Lycoperdon, in which 
latter instance we have followed Massee’s “ Monograph.” We 
have never considered that the Gasteromycetes was the strongest 
group in Saccardo’s “ Sylloge.” The subterranean species, of 
which there are but few, lead naturally to the Tuberacei, by 
moans of which the Ascomycetes are entered. Then follows the 
Discomycetes, in which we were content to accept the arrange- 
ment of the “ Sylloge,” with some small modifications. The 
Pyrenomycetes are very meagrely represented, but such of them 
as there are, are classified according to the “Synopsis Pyreno- 
mycetum ” published in “ Grcvillea,” in which the principle of 
the “ Sylloge ” is departed from, in not taking the sporidia as 
the fundamental basis of classification. Our opinions on this 
point have been expressed freely elsewhere, and need not be 
revived here. The Phycomycetes close this portion of the 
work. 
^ The Hypodermece, which consists of the Ustilagines, and 
Uredines, follow the “ Sylloge ” in their arrangement, as 
