Mycobilimbia australis
Description : Thallus thin, effuse, membranaceous, whitish or pale-grey, sometimes tinged brownish. Apothecia 0.5–4.5 mm diam, often forming larger conglomerate–tuberculate, blackberry-like clusters, dark-brown to black, sessile, disc plane to convex; proper exciple thin and often flexuous, persistent. Epithecium pale-brown. Hymenium very heavily conglutinated, 40–60 μm tall. Hypothecium dark reddish brown, to 100 μm thick. Hymenium and hypothecium usually with scattered, blue-violet (K+ green) granules. Paraphyses sparse, slender to 1.5 μm thick, simple, apices slightly swollen to 2.5 μm diam. Asci Porpidia -type (Malcolm & Galloway 1997: 187). Ascospores colourless, simple to rarely 1-septate, ellipsoidal to ovate, 8-12 × 3–5 μm. Pycnidia rare, black, glossy, superficial, 0.01–0.05 mm diam., ostiole gaping at maturity. Conidia bacillar, 4–5 × 1 μm.
Chemistry : TLC−, all reactions negative.
N: Northland (Waiwera). S: Nelson (Mt Owen, Red Hill), Canterbury (Porter's Pass, Mt Hutt, Sebastopol, Tasman River), Otago (The Remarkables, Poolburn, Lake Onslow, Loganburn Reservoir, Rock & Pillar Ra.). On damp soil and mosses and plant debris in subalpine to high-alpine grasslands and in braided riverbeds, where it produces spreading greyish thalli with prominent, blackberry-like fruits. Also on rocks in pasture in northern, lowland habitats. Known also from montane areas of SE Australia, Tasmania and southern South America (Kantvilas et al. 2005: 255).
Austral
Illustrations : Kantvilas & Jarman (1999: 7 – as Myobilimbia sp.); Lumbsch et al. (2001: 19 – as Mycobilimbia sp.); Kantvilas et al. (2005b: 252, fig 1; 253, fig. 2).
Mycobilimbia australis is characterised by: the terricolous (occasionally saxicolous) habit; the thin, effuse greyish thallus; the clustered, blackberry-like apothecia; the hymenium with scattered blue-violet granules or crystals; and the ovoid, simple to 1-septate ascospores. It has some superficial similarities to Bilimbia lobulata (q.v.) but this species differs in having a distinctly squamulose thallus, a requirement for basicolous substrata, and 2–3-septate ascospores, 12–30(–34) × 3–6 μm, with a finely warted perispore. The bipolar species M. hypnorum (Lib.) Kalb & Hafellner, ently recorded from Tasmania (Kantvilas et al. 2005b: 257–258), is readily distinguished from other species of Mycobilimbia by the persistently marginate, black apothecia, apothecial pigments, unpigmented paraphyses, and 0–1(–3)-septate ascospores, 10–17 × 5–8 μm. This should be searched for on damp soil and detritus in alpine moorland habitats.
