Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Calicium chrysocephalum Turner ex Ach. Methodus, Suppl.: 15 (1803).

Descriptions : Flora (1985: 87); Tibell (1987: 86–87).

Chemistry : Thallus K−, C−, KC−, Pd−; containing vulpinic acid in thallus and forming the pruina of the apothecia.

N: Gisborne (Mt Honokawa) to Wellington (Tararua Ra.). S: Nelson (Tasman Mts) to Southland (Pourakino Valley). On bark and lignum of beech (Nothofagus fusca. N. menziesii, N. solandri), and also on bark of broadleaf (Griselinia littoralis), larch (Larix sp.) and kanuka (Kunzea ericoides), 150–1310 m. Widely distributed in cool temperate to temperate regions of both hemispheres, Eurasia, North America, Africa, Australia, Central and South America (Tibell 1999c: 33; McCarthy 2003c, 2006; Nimis & Martellos 2003; Tibell & Thor 2003; Hermansson & Pystina 2004; Tibell & Ryan 2004b).

Cosmopolitan

Illustrations : Tibell (1987: 86, fig. 54; 1996b: 31, fig. 19 C; 1999c: 84); Wirth (1995b: 279); Goward (1999: 78, fig. 11A); Dobson (2000: 113; 2005: 121).

Chaenotheca chrysocephala is characterised by: the bright-yellow pigment, vulpinic acid in the thallus; the rather short to middle-sized apothecia; non-catenulate, single asci and rather small, spherical to broadly ellipsoidal spores with a coarse ornamentation.