Lichina minutissima
Description : Thallus minute, fruticose, dark olive-greenish black or blackish, in diffract–areolate clumps 0.5–2 mm diam., separated by deep and wide cracks and forming irregular colonies, 0.5–2.5 cm diam., rather pliable when moist, friable and easily dislodged when dry. Lobes erect, cylindrical, fastigiately branched, up to 1.2 mm tall and to 0.06 mm thick. Pycnoascomata with a thalline margin, terminal, to 0.2 mm diam., disc brownish, punctiform. Hymenium 100–110 μm tall. Paraphyses of elongated conidiophores. Asci cylindrical, 8-spored, 90 × 6 μm. Ascospores colourless, simple, ellipsoidal, 8–9 × 5–5.5 μm. Conidia bacillar, 3.5–4.5 × 1–1.5 μm, produced terminally on simple, long-celled conidiophores.
S: Otago (Fohn Lakes, "Great" tor, N Rough Ridge), Southland (S Mavora Lake). On steep, water runnels at base of schist tors, among damp mosses and species of Siphula on alpine rocks, and on lakeside rocks. Associating with Aspicilia cinerea, Rhizocarpon geminatum and Verrucaria austroschisticola. Still very poorly known and collected here, but is easily overlooked and it may well be more widely distributed on damp, streamside and lake-shore rocks. Known also from Western Ausralia (Henssen 1973; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).
Australasian
Illustrations : Henssen (1973: pls 1G, 3B, C).
Lichina minutissima is characterised by: the saxicolous habit (lakeside rocks); the minutely fruticose, blackish thallus, developing in small, areolate patches; apothecia that are pycnoascomata; and simple, colourless ascospores.
