Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Thallus white to grey, chinky or granular, corticate, sorediate. Soralia small, orbicular, scattered, white. Apothecia sessile, constricted at base, to 1 mm diam., thalline exciple well-developed, entire or somewhat irregular; disc orange-red, epruinose. Ascospores helically asymmetric, 8–14-septate, 50–70 × 4–7 μm.

Chemistry : Atranorin, placodialic acid, haematommone (Staiger & Kalb 1995).

N: Northland (Kaitaia, Herekino, Mt Taratara, Kaeo, Waipoua Forest), South Auckland (Mamaku Plateau). S: Nelson (Kaihoka Lakes). On bark of Beilschmiedia tawa, Phyllocladus, Rhopalostylus sapida, 10–1200 m. The species is quite common in northern New Zealand and is disjunt in NW Nelson, a pattern shown by a number of lichens including: Lichenothrix riddlei, Megalospora bartlettii, Parmotrema mellissii, Pseudocyphellaria montagnei, Sticta babingtonii, Teloschistes flavicans, Thysanothecium hookeri. Known also from France, Portugal, Madeira, Cuba, Brazil, Chile, India, and E Australia (Staiger & Kalb 1995; McCarthy 2003c, 2006; Elix 2004a).

Cosmopolitan

Illustration : Rogers (1982: 123 fig. 4G); Rogers & Bartlett (1986: 248, fig. 1D; 253, fig. 5E); Staiger & Kalb (1995: 164, fig. 105).

Haematomma sorediatum is a rather inconspicuous corticolous species characterised by: the presence of small, orbicular soralia and the orange-red, pruinose apothecial discs.