HANDBOOK 
OF 
AUSTRALIAN FUNGI. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The immense tract of country presumed to be covered by this 
work is the whole Australian continent, as far as it has" been 
investigated, and the Island of Tasmania, but exclusive of New 
Zealand. The fungi of some of the Colonies are better known 
than others, but even in the best much still remains to be done, 
since it is believed that researches have been local, and hence 
incomplete. It is only during the past ton or fifteen years that 
any earnest endeavour has been made to collect material for a 
Work of this kind. 
The first contributions to the Fungi of Australia may be 
attributed to Flinders’ voyage in 1801 to 1805, when Robert 
Brown enumerated about a dozen species. Succeeding to this 
Were the collections of Cunningham from 1816 to 1831, and 
Gunn in Tasmania from 1832 to 1850. These were mostly 
described by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, in connection with those 
collected by Drummond in 1839. Meanwhile, in Western 
Australia, Ludwig Preiss collected the forty species enume- 
rated by Fries in “ Planta? Preissianse,” and published in 1846. 
From this time forward Berkeley, in Hooker’s “ Flora Tas- 
mania ” (1860) and in Hooker’s Journal for 1848, continued 
Tasmanian Fungi, and in the same Journal for 1845 the species 
collected by Drummond. Then came a period of rest, until, in 
1873 and 1881, Berkeley issued papers on this subject, in the 
1 Journal of the Linnean Society.” In 1878 Berkeley and Broome 
Published their first communication on the Fungi of Queens- 
land in the “ Transactions of the Linnean Society,” the second 
and third papers appearing in 1883 and 1887. Meanwhile the 
Challenger Expedition touched on the coasts, and collected the 
species recorded in the “ Linnean Journal ” for 1878. It was 
in 1880 that the Rev. C. Kalchbrenner commenced his series of 
Australian Fungi in “ Grevillea,” and in the next year these 
Were continued, in unison with M. C. Cooke. A collected list 
