  We recover the luminosity distributions over a wide range of absolute
magnitude (-24.5 < M_{R} < -16.5) for a sample of seven rich southern galaxy
clusters. We find a large variation in the ratio of dwarf to giant galaxies,
DGR: 0.8\le $ DGR $\le 3.1. This variation is shown to be inconsistent with a
ubiquitous cluster luminosity function. The DGR shows a smaller variation from
cluster to cluster in the inner regions (r \ls 0.56 Mpc). Outside these regions
we find the DGR to be strongly anti-correlated with the mean local projected
galaxy density with the DGR increasing towards lower densities. In addition the
DGR in the outer regions shows some correlation with Bautz-Morgan type. Radial
analysis of the clusters indicate that the dwarf galaxies are less centrally
clustered than the giants and form a significant halo around clusters. We
conclude that measurements of the total cluster luminosity distribution based
on the inner core alone are likely to be severe underestimates of the dwarf
component, the integrated cluster luminosity and the contribution of galaxy
masses to the cluster's total mass. Further work is required to quantify this.
The observational evidence that the unrelaxed, lower density outer regions of
clusters are dwarf-rich, adds credence to the recent evidence and conjecture
that the field is a predominantly dwarf rich environment and that the dwarf
galaxies are under-represented in measures of the local field luminosity
function.
