Flora of New Zealand Series

Thallus crustose, grey or brown or olivaceous, with a distinct marginal prothallus. Photobiont green, ? Trebouxia. Apothecia lecideine, black or brown-black. Epithecium red-brown, hymenium colourless. Exciple with a brown, sometimes very thick marginal part and an unpigmented innner part. Paraphyses simple or dichotomously branched, with slightly thickened apical cells. Hypothecium ± pale brown or colourless. Asci sub-cylindrical or clavate, 8-spored with a narrow amyloid tholus. Ascospores simple, colourless, ellipsoid-oblong, often curved, thick-walled. Pycnidia crateriform, semi-immersed, brown. Conidia ellipsoid-oblong 2.5-5 × 1.2-2 µm.

Fuscidea is a segregate of Lecidea sens. lat. , accommodating c. 20 species in the family Lecideaceae occurring on both bark and rock [Hertel Ergebn. Forsch. Unternehmens Nepal Himal. 6 (3): 195-199 (1977); Poelt and Vĕzda Bestimmungsschl. eur. Flecht. Erg. II: 150-159 (1981)]. The genus is very poorly known in New Zealand, an undescribed corticolous species discovered by P. W. James in September, 1981, being known from the bark of trees in an exotic plantation in Hanmer State Forest. Species are recognised by the red-brown apices of the paraphyses, the pale hypothecium and the small, spherical to ellipsoid, often curved spores.