Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Thallus epilithic, to 1 mm thick, usually blastidiate, in part or entirely, rarely completely smooth, blastidia somewhat segmented, with globose to clavate sections, crustose to somewhat squamulose, areolate, continuous or of discrete squamules or areolae, sometimes associating with cyanobacteria. Prothallus dark-brown, marginal, somewhat indistinct. Upper surface greenish grey, pale-grey, ochraceous, brown to dark-brown. Apothecia numerous, to rare or absent, to 1.2 mm diam., lecanorine, rarely becoming lecideine, adnate to sessile; disc dark-brown, dark reddish brown or blackish, plane to convex. Thalline margin entire, crenate or blastidiate, concolorous with thallus. Hymenium 75–130 μm tall; epithecium reddish brown, K−, 10–15 μm thick. Hypothecium colourless to yellowish, K−, to 150 μm thick. Paraphyses 1–4 μm thick, apices to 5 μm, occasionally enlarged with oil cells to 7 μm. Asci Lecanora -type. Ascospores Teichophila -type, spore ontogeny type A, torus absent, walls smooth to finely scabrid, with swellings around septum in K, 16–32 × 9–15 μm. Pycnidia immersed, flask-shaped to 200 μm wide and 250 μm tall; ostiole brownish, Conidia short-bacillar, 3–4 × 1–1.5 μm.

Chemistry : TLC−, all reactions negative.

N: Northland (Leigh) to Auckland (Anawhata, Kawakawa Bay) and Wellington (Miramar Peninsula, Island Bay, Cape Palliser, Manurewa Point). S: Nelson (Golden Bay – Paton's Rock NW of Takaka, Pepin I., Cable Bay, Stephen's Bay), Marborough (Irongate Stream Whites Bay – S of Kaikoura), Canterbury (Tumbledown Bay Banks Peninsula) [map in Kaschik (2006: 35, fig. 9)]. On hard, siliceous coastal rocks and boulders in more or less sheltered bays. It is not abundant on exposed shores. Associating with Caloplaca cirrochroides, C. sublobulata and other species of Caloplaca, Lecanora dispersa, L. subcoarctata, Tylothallia pahiensis, and Xanthoria ligulata. Known also from Australia (Matzer & Mayrhofer 1994; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).

Australasian

Illustrations : Matzer & Mayrhofer (1994: 112, fig. 2; 113, figs 4–7; 114, figs 8–9); Kaschik (2006: 33, fig. 7).

Rinodina blastidiata is characterised by: the saxicolous habit; the formation of blastidia that appear to function as vegetative propagules; and of "oil paraphyses" that are characterised by the presence of distinctly enlarged cells ("oil cells") with oil-like contents (Matzer & Mayrhofer (1994).