Rinodina capensis
=Rinodina corticola (Arnold) Arnold, Verhandl. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien 29: 370 (1879).
≡R. teichophila var. corticola Arnold, Verhandl. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien 18: 952 (1868).
Description : Thallus corticolous, white or creamish, occasionally greyish, always well-developed, thin, smooth, areolate, areolae plane or globose, sometimes granular to warted, without a prothallus. Apothecia lecanorine, sessile, discrete, scattered or contiguous, to 0.6 mm diam.; disc black, plane to convex. Thalline margin concolorous with thallus, entire, smooth, excluded at maturity. Parathecium 15–20 μm wide, hyaline, brownish in upper parts. Cortex cellular, hyaline with a narrow, opaque border of atranorin crystals, I+ pale-blue. Epithecium to 10 μm thick, red-brown. Hymenium to 60 μm tall. Paraphyses 1–2 μm thick, apices to 3 μm diam. Hypothecium to 60 μm thick. Asci Lecanora -type. Ascospores Physcia -type, spore ontogeny type A, torus well-developed, 19–23 × 8–10(–13) μm, wall finely warted.
Chemistry : Thallus and apothecial margins K+ yellow, Pd+ yellow; containing atranorin, chloroatranorin and zeorin (tr.).
S: Canterbury (Hanmer, Cass). On bark of Betula and Nothofagus solandri var. cliffortioides. Known also from mid- to southern Europe and Macaronesia, South Africa, and western North America (Magnusson 1947; Nimis 1993; Ropin & Mayrhofer 1993; Giralt & Mayrhofer 1994a: 132; Scholz 2000; Llimona & Hladun 2001; Nimis & Martellos 2003; Sheard 2004).
Cosmopolitan
Illustrations : Ropin & Mayrhofer (1993: 782, fig. 4; 784, fig. 8; 787, fig. 20 – as Rinodina corticola); Edler (2002: 38, fig. 7).
Rinodina capensis is characterised by: the corticolous habit; ascospores of Physcia -type, 19–23 × 8–10(–13) μm; the I+ pale-blue reaction of the cortex; and the presence of atranorin.
