Summary
Macquarie Island is an oceanic island located 1000k m south-east of Tasmania.The island, which lies close to but north of the Antarctic Convergence is the southern most island in the world with a fairly complete cover of vegetation. However, the vascular flora is impoverished and consists of only 46 species. During the period of late January to late April of 1995,4 12 field collections of myxomycetesr,e presentinga t least 22 speciesi n II genera,w ere obtained during the course of an intensive survey of fungal biodiversity on Macquarie Island. Moist-chamber cultures prepared with various types of plant debris yielded only 14 collections, but this total included three additional species and two additional genera. All but four of the species we recorded from the island are new records for the South Polar Region. Most field collectionsw ere associatedw ith Sti/bocarpap olaris (Araliaceae)a nd P/europhy//umh ookeri (Asteraceae)t,h e usual dominants in the herbfield communities that commonly occur on upper beach slopes and coastal terraces. Trichia verrucosa( 80 collections),D iderma a/pinum (78)a nd Craterium/ eucocepha/um(5 9)w eret he most consistentlya bundant myxomycetes.O ther speciesr epresentedb y ?:.15c ollectionsw ere Didymium cf. dubium, Cot/aria /urida, Lamproderma arcyrioidesa nd Didymium macquarienseT. he latteri s a speciesn ewt o sciencet hatw as describedf rom materialc ollected during the present study. All of the species ofmyxomycetes now known to occur on Macquarie Island are members of the Trichiales,P hysaralesS, temonitaleso r Echinostelialesn; o membero f the Liceales or Ceratiomyxalesw as everc ollected.