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Australia's rich fungal heritage:
Fungi contribute greatly to Australia’s biodiversity in terms of sheer numbers. Australia has many times more fungi than plants -
The biodiversity of fungi remains poorly known in Australia because less attention has been given to them than to the study of plants, and because the fruiting bodies of fungi are ephemeral structures appearing at irregular and unpredictable intervals. Sampling of fungi at any one time will reveal only a fraction of the fungi present at any location.
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perhaps 250, 000
fungi compared to 21,000 to 23,000 native Australian vascular plant
species. However we know little about most of them – possibly only about 5-10% are discovered and named to date. It is estimated that about 5,000 larger fungi such as mushrooms, toadstools, puffballs, coral fungi, earthstars, and truffles occur in Australia. Australia has a high number of truffles – estimated between about 1200-2400 species with only about 10-25 % of species known so far. About 83 genera and 300 species of truffles are currently known in Australia, compared to 50 known genera in Europe and only 18 in Africa. The distribution and abundance of most native fungi in Australia is not
known. The distribution of some fungi is being addressed by the
