Flora of New Zealand Series

Holotype: New Zealand. Canterbury, Moa Basin. Moa Creek, a tributary of the Wilberforce River. On mossy rocks, 17 February, 1979. I. Brown, CHR 381002! Isotype in BM.

Thallus 5-10(-15) cm diam., spreading, loosely attached, thin, fragile, papery, sometimes in densely compacted, ± caespitose hummocks. Lobes 2-4(-10) mm wide, broad towards periphery, narrow, convolute-complicate centrally, margins rarely entire, sinuous, crisped, ± ascending, ± densely lacerate-incised, becoming phyllidiate, sometimes pubescent. Upper surface matt, minutely pitted or wrinkled, to minutely white-papillate (×10 lens), bright lettuce-green, suffused brownish or dark olive in parts when wet, paler when dry, margins sometimes white-pruinose, phyllidiate. Phyllidia marginal, never laminal, 0.1-0.5 mm wide and tall, irregular, pectinate, ± ascending, often merging into smaller marginal lobes, sinuous, often white-pruinose, or pubescent, often dense centrally. Lower surface pale buff, to mid brown or dark brown centrally, tomentose, tomentum white, rarely dark brown, short, uniform, thin at or near margins, or with a narrow, wrinkled, glabrous marginal zone. Cyphellae round to irregular, 0.05-1.0 mm diam., white, scattered. Apothecia sessile to subpedicellate, sparse to numerous, solitary, to 2-3-confluent, round to contorted through mutual pressure, 0.1-4.0 mm diam., concave at first, soon becoming plane and then convex-undulate, pale red-brown to dark brown or brown- black, margins pale flesh-coloured or whitish (translucent when wet), inflexed at first, thin at maturity and then crenate-striate, often ± denticulate, exciple pale buff or whitish, to corrugate-scabrid or pubescent. Epithecium red-brown, granular, 8-12 µm thick. Hymenium colourless, 50-70 µm tall. Asci clavate. Ascospores biseriate, colourless, elongate-ellipsoid with pointed ends, 1-3-septate, 20-30 × 5-8.3 µm.

N: Wellington (Erua near National Park, Ruahine limestone plateau). S: Nelson (Mt Arthur) east of Main Divide to Otago (Old Man Ra.) and near Dunedin (Mihiwaka, Leith Saddle, Saddle Hill). St: (Ocean Beach, Glory Cove). Mainly alpine or subalpine among damp rocks, on soil in rock crevices, in grassland, rarely epiphytic on Dracophyllum traversii and Pseudopanax simplex, s.l. (at southern end of its range) in Stewart I., to 2000 m.

Endemic

S. martinii is distinguished by its ascending, lacerate-phyllidiate lobe margins which may be occasionally white-pruinose or pubescent, the fragile, somewhat papery lobes and by the red- brown apothecia. Although occasionally corticolous especially in the southern part of its range, it is normally a subalpine, grassland species, reaching to 2000 m in fellfield on the Canterbury foothills east of the Main Divide. Epiphytic forms have a close resemblance to S. lacera but lack the small stalk characteristic of this species and the lower surface near the centre is never orange- brownish as it is in S. lacera. It is distinguished from S. squamata by the marginal phyllidia (imbricate, squamiform isidia in S. squamata) and in the colour of the apothecial disc.