Flora of New Zealand Series

Holotype: New Zealand. Otago, Roxburgh Golf Course, top of schist slab by path, N-facing in full sun, 19.viii.2002, D.J. Galloway 5614, CHR 534104.

Description : Thallus continuous to areolate or squamulose-areolate, spreading in round to irregular patches, 1–3(–5) cm diam., thin to thick. Areolae round to irregular or angular, separated by deep cracks, to contiguous or overlapping, 0.5–1.5(–2.5) mm diam., sometimes lifting from substratum and appearing squamulose, margins entire to minutely crenulate, notched or incised, sometimes distinctly thickened and with or without a grey-white pruina. Upper surface tawny yellow-brown or orange-brown, fawnish to abraded and appearing dull creamish with a few orange-red spots, glossy to matt, smooth to irregularly and minutely ridged or papillate-roughened, with scattered, whitish, irregular pseudocyphellae (×10 lens). Apothecia 1 to many (3–5–8) per areole, immersed at first, erupting through upper cortex, soon becoming sessile, round to irregular and contorted though mutual pressure, 0.1–0.6(–1.0) mm diam., disc concave at first, then plane to subconvex, rusty orange-brown to brown-red, matt; thalline margin present as a thin collar below disc, concolorous with thallus; proper margin persistent, entire, thin, slightly raised, matt to glossy, concolorous with disc or paler. Epithecium granular, yellow-brown, 8–15 μm thick. Hymenium colourless, without oil droplets, 55–75 μm tall. Paraphyses slender 1.5–2 μm thick, apices slightly swollen, to 3.5–4 μm diam. Asci clavate 50–65(–70) × 16–23 μm, 8-spored. Ascospores oblong-ellipsoidal, apices rounded, (13–)15–16.5(–18.3) × 6.5–10 μm; septum 3.5–5 μm thick, ¼ to ⅓ length of spore.

Chemistry : Thallus and apothecia K+ reddish purple; containing parietin.

N: South Auckland (Great Mercury I.), Wellington (Makara), S: Canterbury (Dyer's Pass Port Hills, Mt Monument, Mt Herbert Forest, Tumbledown Bay Banks Peninsula), Otago (Kurow, Roxburgh, Macrae's Hill, O'Brien's Creek Taieri Mouth). On coastal rocks and inland on sandstone and schist rocks, rarely on fenceposts. Often forming mosaics with other crustose lichens including: Acarospora, Candelariella coralliza, C. vitellina, Xanthoparmelia mougeotina.

Endemic

Illustration : Galloway (2004c: 107, fig. 2).

Caloplaca murrayi is characterised by: the saxicolous (rarely lignicolous) habit; the areolate or squamulose-areolate thallus; apothecia 1 to many (3–5–8) per areole, immersed at first, erupting through upper cortex, soon becoming sessile, disc concave at first, then plane to subconvex, rusty orange-brown to brown-red, matt; thalline margin present as a thin collar below disc, concolorous with thallus; proper margin persistent, entire, thin, slightly raised, matt to glossy, concolorous with disc or paler; ascospores oblong-ellipsoidal, apices rounded, (13–)15–16.5(–18.3) × 6.5–10 μm; septum 3.5–5 μm thick, ¼ to ⅓ length of spore. It is similar to C. cirrochrooides (q.v.) but the thalline squamules lack the marginal, labriform soralia of that species.