Tasmanian Discomycetes

The students of Tasmanian Fungi have very insufficient means of becoming acquainted with described species, and further, such a small number of those indigenous in the Stat~ have been described that there is fair reason to justify a paper to bring our knowledge up to date. It is probable that some, perhaps many, of those described as new may eventually be recognised to be identical with forms already named elsewhere, but if we wait till we shall commit no errors the purpose of this paper will not have been met. It is essentially one to afford a student an easy means of recognising the local species of the large fungus group known as Discomycetes. The only work already available to students is Cooke's Handbook of Australian Fungi, and the information in that book is too fragmentary, and often erroneous, to be of much assistance. The Gymnoascaceae have been included at the end of the paper, though they belong to another group, Plectomycetes. The disc-fruiting fungi, which have.adopted a parasitic habit, commonly known as Lichens, are excluded from convenience, and not from any supposition that they are genetica1ly distinct. The Histeriales are almost continuous with some of the smaller plants of our group, but their distinction may soon be recognised.