Toninia glaucocarpa
Description : Thallus squamulose, spreading, indeterminate. Squamules to 2 mm diam., scattered to partly contiguous, orbicular, plane to subconvex. Upper surface pale olivaceous-green, epruinose to weakly pruinose, glossy, with deep fissures in the cortex, without pores or pseudocyphellae. Margins white, pruinose. Lower surface pale-brown to white. Upper cortex 50–220 μm thick, including an epinecral layer to 200 μm thick containing crystals of calcium oxalate. Apothecia to 1.5 mm diam., persistently plane and marginate, or becoming weakly convex, moderately pruinose. Exciple dark reddish brown in marginal parts, pale reddish brown to hyaline centrally, K+ red, HNO3−, with scattered calcium oxalate crystals in inner parts. Hypothecium ±hyaline, with scattered crystals of calcium oxalate, especially at base. Hymenium 60–70 μm tall; epithecium dark reddish brown, K+ red, HNO3−, with a few calcium oxalate crystals. Ascospores narrowly ellipsoidal to bacillar, 1(–2)-septate, 13–20 × 3–4.5 μm. Pycnidia immersed in squamules. Conidia filiform.
Chemistry : TLC−, all reactions negative.
N: Known also from Australia (McCarthy 2003c, 2006).
Australasian
Illustration : Timdal (1991: 64, fig. 36).
Toninia glaucocarpa is characterised by: the saxicolous (limestone and calcareous sandstone) habit; a squamulose, olivaceous thallus with white, pruinose margins; plane, marginate, pruinose apothecia; a dark reddish brown epithecium (K+ red, N−); and narrowly ellipsoidal to bacillar, 1(–2)-septate ascospores, 13–20 × 3– 4.5 μm.
