X 
INTRODUCTION. 
now being deemed to be advisable Baron F. von Mueller kindly 
provided for the publication of “ Fungi Australiani,” in con- 
nection with his “ Phytographi* Australia),” and this was 
issued in 1883, but the bulk of the copies were lost at sea. 
This catalogue included 1,200 species. From that time to the 
present a continued stream of specimens have been sent over for 
determination, the new species being described in “ Grevillea; ” 
some few smaller collections having found their way to the 
Continent of Europe, and been recorded in “ Hedwigia,” 
“ Malpighia,” and other continental journals, the whole of 
which, we believe, are incorporated in the present volume. The 
number of species collected by the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 
one or two of the French Scientific Expeditions, or found 
scattered through scientific literature, during the past half 
century, has been small, and of little importance, but it is 
hoped that none of them have been overlooked. By com- 
parison it will be seen that the number of species has been 
nearly doubled in less than ten years. All the specimens 
described by Kalchbrenner, except the Hymenomycetes, passed 
through the hands of the author of this Handbook, and he has 
had access to all the species published by Berkeley, and by 
Berkeley and Broome, as well as those published by himself, 
'the only difficulty has been with the species published on the 
Continent, of which he has seen some, but of the plants 
included in “ Plantse Preissianae ” he has no knowledge, and 
these are inserted on the authority of Fries. 
Numerically the total of species for such a large tract of 
country as Australia is very small, and, as yet, the orders are 
disproportionate. Hitherto, for the most part, the largo and 
conspicuous species have been collected, whilst the minute, for 
which knowledge and experience are required, are very im- 
perfectly represented. Taking the whole number of described 
species of fungi, as represented in Saccardo’s “ Sylloge,” at 
36,000, including the first portion of the supplement, then the 
total for the Australian Colonies, of a little over 2,000, is but 
one-eighteenth of the whole. Whereas, in the British Isles, 
the Agaricini reach to 1,350, and, doubtless, the residue of the 
Hymenomycetes would bring the number to 2,000, or equal to 1 
all the orders in Australia. It is quite improbable that a total 
of the Hymenomycetes of 1,174 species represents fully the 
number which are indigenous, and yet the Hymenomycetes and 
the Oastromycetes are the most numerous. Accepting 9,600 as 
a fair computation of the number of described species of 
Hymenomycetes, then a little more than one-eighth for the 
colonies is not an unsatisfactory proportion, when it is taken 
into account how short a time has been devoted to their 
investigation. The Oastromycetes present several features of . 
great interest, since it is probable that, when more complete, 
this portion of the Flora will be exceptionally remarkable. The 
total number of described species for the whole world is about 
