Book review

Slowly but steadily the important work ‘Fungi of Australia’ is published. The first volume appeared in two parts and provided an introduction to the series, and consisted of a collection of review essays on various aspects of Australian mycology. Volume 2 is the Catalogue and bibliography of Australian fungi and will appear in three parts. The first part of this volume two was published in 1997, and now finally the second part has appeared. The Catalogue began as a project to compile information on Australian agarics and boletes. In the first part several orders of macrofungi were treated, and the present volume was meant to include the remaining macrofungi. However, the Catalogue has evolved to cover all groups of fungi, and the present volume 2B now encompasses the remaining larger Basidiomycota and the large Myxomycota. It may seem a little odd that lichens are included in the Flora of Australia series, while the non-fungi Myxomycota is included in the series Fungi of Australia, but, as the authors state, “to some extent it is a grouping of convenience” and the ‘fungi’ incorporate “all those organisms traditionally studied by mycologists” and that surely includes Myxomycota. The book contains 14 pages of introduction in which also an overview is given of which order of fungi will be treated in which volume. Of each of almost 1,400 accepted species in this volume 2B the authors are given and the publication, synonyms and a comprehensive list of literature records of the taxon from Australia up to 2000. Misidentifications have been noted where they have been corrected in publications. The book is concluded with a 58 pages long list of references and an index of the names of the taxa used. The 64 coloured plates of high quality on 16 pages give the book a more attractive appearance.