Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Basal squamules persistent or disappearing, 3–5 mm long, 1–3 mm wide, irregularly incised to crenate-lobate, greenish above, white below, esorediate. Podetia arising from upper surface of basal squamules, 0.5–3.5 cm tall, 0.5–2.5 mm wide, tubular, generally straight, cup-forming, corticate and esorediate at base, corticate or with irregularly scattered granular soredia above, especially below cups and branching portions, sometimes podetia with granular soredia/podetial squamules present along entire length, expanding beneath developing cups and branching portions, cups narrow at first and barely wider than supporting podetium, later widening to c. 1 cm, sometimes deformed, with one or more proliferations along margins, proliferations blunt or branching, rarely subulate or producing cups, obovate, coarsely inflated, tumid, occasionally distinctly flattened, corticate and esorediate, developing minute, massed squamules especially towards base and beneath apothecia. Apothecia brown, forming regular hemispherical "caps" at first with a distinct proper margin exceeding podetial support, later becoming swollen, solitary or in groups along margins of cups or at branch apices. Pycnidia pale-brown to black, usually along cup margins. Conidia falciform, 2–4 × 0.2–0.4 μm.

Chemistry : Medulla K− to + dingy yellow to brown, Pd+ red; containing fumarprotocetraric acid.

N: South Auckland (Mangaotaki River King Country). S: Nelson (Mt Arthur, Pelorus Bridge), Westland (Greymouth, Awatuna, Whitcombe River, Okuru River, Ngatau River), Canterbury (Lewis Pass, Woolshed Hill), Otago (Haast Pass, Cameron Flat Makarora, Paradise, Invincible Creek, Rees Valley), Southland (Cascade Creek, Eglinton Valley). St: (Glory Cove). A: Ant: In tussock grassland and on rotting logs in beech forest. Known also from temperate habitats in Australia and Tasmania (Hammer 2002: 573; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).

Australasian

Illustrations : Hammer (2002: 574, figs 36–39).

Cladonia nudicaulis is characterised by: the swollen, often tumid proliferations that originate on the cup margins.