PREFACE. 
F HIS volume has been produced in order to supply a want 
adiicli has long been felt in the Australian Colonies, but which 
hitherto has been found to be impracticable, as local publishers 
w °uhl not undertake the risk. Fortunately this difficulty has 
been removed by the combined action of the Governments of 
the most important colonies to assist in this publication. It is 
How issued under the sanction and authority of the Govern- 
ments of Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South 
Australia, and Tasmania. It has not been attempted to incor- 
porate New Zealand, and only to refer to most of the species 
■^hieh are common to Australia and New Zealand, the majority 
being different. 
, The material upon which this work is based consists of the 
s Pecies enumerated by Kalchbrenner in “ Grevillea,” and pre- 
i Vl °us authors, with those collected since and communicated to 
l he author by Messrs. F. M. Bailey, Dr. Berggren, Mrs. Flora 
Martin, Baron F. von Mueller, F. Reader, Schomburgck, and 
others. In addition to these may be mentioned the specimens 
.secured by Sir Joseph D. Hooker, in his Antarctic Voyage, in 
the Challenger Expedition, and other Expeditions which have 
touched upon the coasts. 
It is not supposed that the present work is by any means ex- 
haustive of the Fungi of the Australian Colonies, since those 
'vhich are so minute as to require the aid of a pocket lens are far 
below the number which would be reasonably expected to occur 
