Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Primary thallus persistent to evanescent, 3–4 mm long, 2–4 mm wide. Podetia (2–)3–5(–7) cm tall, 1–5 mm diam., greenish grey to partly browned, basal parts blackened and dying; somewhat branched, mainly through cup formation. Cups very well developed, usually 2–3 per podetium, (2–)4–8(–0) mm wide, flaring gradually, margins with 10–25 teeth but soon richly proliferating into numerous blunt, 0.5–1-cm-long apothecia-tipped branchlets, the cups occasionally becoming very irregular. Podetial squamules normally present, most abundant and largest at base. Surface of podetia variable, somewhat maculate, cortex largely continuous. Apothecia very common, to 7 mm wide, pale- to dark-brown. Pycnidia common, 0.2 mm wide, sometimes constricted at base.

Chemistry : K+ red-brown, Pd+ red; containing fumarprotocetraric and protocetraric acids.

N: Auckland (Rangitoto I.) on dry blocks of lava. S: Southland (Awarua Bay). Known also from Asia, Europe and North America (Ahti 1980b: 215; Ahti & Hammer 2002).

Cosmopolitan (mainly NH)

Illustrations : Ahti (1980b: 214, figs 10–13); Thomson (1984: 136); Johnson et al. (1995: 357); Goward (1999: 122, fig. 8A); Brodo et al. (2001: 257, pl. 240).

Cladonia gracilis ssp. turbinata is characterised by: much wider cups (to 1 cm in robust specimens) than in C. tenerrima; podetia are also wider and proliferations from cup margins are not infrequent.