rtis and Ravenel, but their
collections in Carolina cannot be supposed to represent the whole of
the United States; the small collections made in Texas, Mexico, etc.,
only serve to show the richness of the country, not yet half
exhausted. It is to be hoped that the young race of botanists in the
United States will apply themselves to the task of investigating the
Mycologic Flora of this rich and fertile region. In Central America
very small and incomplete collections have as yet been made, and the
same may be said of South America and Canada. Of the whole extent of
the New World, only the Carolina States of North America can really be
said to be satisfactorily known. Asia is still less known, the whole
of our vast Indian Empire being represented by the collections made by
Dr. Hooker in the Sikkim Himalayas, and a few isolated specimens from
other parts. Ceylon has recently been removed from the category of the
unknown by the publication of its Mycologic Flora.[B] All that is
known of Java is supplied by the researches of Junghuhn; whilst all
the rest is completely unknown, including China, Japan, Siam, the
Malayan Peninsula, Burmah, and the whole of the countries in the north
and west of India. A little is known of the Philippines, and the
Indian Archipelago, but this knowledge is too fragmentary to be of
much service. In Africa no part has been properly explored, with the
exception of Algeria, although something is known of the Cape of Good
Hope and Natal. The Australasian Islands are better represented in the
Floras published of those regions. Cuba and the West Indies generally
are moderately well known from the collections of Mr. C. Wright, which
have been recorded in the journal of the Linnaean Society, and in the
same journal Mr. Berkeley has described many Australian species.

It will be seen from the above summary how unsatisfactory it must be
to give anything like a general view of the geographical distribution
of fungi, or to estimate at all approximately the number of species on
the globe. Any attempt, therefore, must be made and accepted subject
to the limitations we have expressed.

The conditions which determine the distribution of fungi are not
precisely those which determine the distribution of the higher plants.
In the case of the parasitic species they may be said to follow the
distribution of their foster-plants, as in the case of the rust, smut,
and mildew of the cultivated cereals, which have follow