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Volume 26, 1893
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Art. XXXIV.—A List of Fungi recently collected in the Bush District, County of Waipawa; being a Further Contribution to the Indigenous Flora of New Zealand.

By W. Colenso, F.R.S., F.L.S. (Lond.), &c.

[Read before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 9th October, 1893.]

Again, in January last, I despatched to the Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, another lot of Fungi that I had gathered at various times during the preceding winter and spring in the forest country near to Dannevirke. This parcel contained 175 separate packets. I have lately received from Kew the list of the same examined and named, from which it appears that several of them were fresh duplicates of specimens formerly sent; others were in triplicate (some of them being perennial, and, being also in different stages of growth, presented various forms and appearances);

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while not a few, obtained in winter, were merely in a state of mycelium, and others imperfect or sterile, of which better specimens are wanted. Those that have been determined and are new to our New Zealand flora are here given (some of them I know belong to the Australian and Tasmanian floras), and only one specimen out of the whole lot is a true species nova.

Fungi.
§ I. Foreign Fungi Already Described, But Not Before Found in New Zealand.

Of Genera known to inhabit New Zealand.
Genus 1.* Agaricus, Linn.

  • 1. A. (Clitocybe) velutipes, Fr.

  • 2. A. (Mycena) filipes, Fr.

  • 3. A. (Pleurotus) mitis, Fr.

  • 4. A. (Pleurotus) porrigens, Fr.

  • 5. A. (Pleurotus) depluens, Fr.

  • 6. A. (Pholiota) squarrosus, Müll.

  • 7. A. (Flammula) inopus, Fr.

  • 8. A. (Flammula) marginatus, Fr.

  • 9. A. (Naucoria) sideroides, Fr.

  • 10. A. (Tubaria) furfuraceus, Fr.

Genus 4. Marasmius, Fries.

  • 1. M. insititius, Fr.

  • Genus 10.† Polyporus, Fries.

  • Fomes, Fries.

  • 1. F. microporus, Fr.

  • Polystictus, Fries.

  • 1. P. vulgaris, Fr.

Genus 12. Favolus, Fries.

  • 1. F. squamiger, B.

Genus 13. Hydnum, Linn.

  • 1. H. molluscum, Fr.

Genus 16. Stereum, Fries.

  • 1. S. spadiceum, Fr.

Genus 17. Corticium, Fries.

  • 1. C. sebaceum, Fr.

  • 2. C. violaceo-lividum, Fr.

  • 3. C. molle, Fr.

  • 4. C. ceraceum, Fr.

[Footnote] * The numbers attached to the genera are those of the same in the “Handbook of the New Zealand Flora.”

[Footnote] † This genus is now separated into four genera—Polyporus, Fomes, Polystictus, and Poria—but in Hooker's work all are included under Polyporus.

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Genus 19. Guepinia, Fries.

  • 1. G. flabellata, Fr.

  • Genus 30. Lycoperdon, Tournefort.

  • 1. L. colensoi, C. and M.

Genus 68. Hypocrea, Fries.

  • 1. H. carnea, B. and C.

  • 2. H. sulphurella, K. andC.

  • * Dacryomyces, Nees.

  • 1. D. stillatus, Fr.

  • Lachnea, Fries.

  • 1. L. scutellata, Fr.

  • 2. L. erinacea, Sw.

  • Lamproderma, B.

  • 1. L. echinulata, Rost.

  • Trichia, Hall.

  • 1. T. chrysosperma, Rost.

  • Of Genera new to New Zealand.

  • Badhamia, Berk.

  • 1. B. hyalina, Fr.

  • Auricularia, Bull.

  • 1. A. lobata, Fr.

  • Torula, Pers.

  • 1. T. velutina, Preuss.

§ II. Species Wholly New to Science.
Hymenobolus.
1. H. atro-fuscus, Masse, n. sp.

And here I think I may again remark on the two striking facts further indicated by this list:—

1. The large number of Fungi here in New Zealand that are identical as to both genera and species with those of European and other countries; as shown also by the list originally published by Sir J. D. Hooker in his “Handbook of the New Zealand Flora,” as well as in my former lists of species novæ, and of known species since detected in New Zealand, given in several of the later volumes of the “Transactions of the New Zealand Institute.”†

2. The small number of truly indigenous (endemic) species novæ.

[Footnote] * This genus, with the three following ones, are not in Hooker's “Handbook of the New Zealand Flora,” but are in Trans. N.Z. Inst., vols. xix., xxii., and xxiii.

[Footnote] † Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xvii., p. 266; and also vol. xix., p. 311.

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At the same time I should state that nearly all that I have been able to collect during several years were obtained from almost the same localities repeatedly gleaned, comprised within a wooded area of, say, twenty miles, between Norsewood and Tahoraiti. My own belief, founded on practical experi-ence, is that the number of Fungi will be yet greatly increased in years to come, while at the same time, I fear, many species (besides numerous others, species novæ, of the more graceful and symmetrical cryptogamic orders—Musci, Hepaticæ, and Lichenes) will become irrecoverably lost to science through the persistent clearing and destroying of the virgin forests, their peculiar habitats.

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