Flora of New Zealand Series

Type : Bagliettoa limborioides A.Massal.

Description : Thallus crustose, saxicolous, thin, uniform, immersed in substratum or weakly epilithic, with or without a delimiting marginal prothallus. Photobiont green, Protococcus. Ascomata perithecia, scattered, black, immersed, globose, ellipsoidal to flask-shaped, dying and leaving small pits. Involucrellum black, apical, plane to subconvex, lid-like, well-developed, exposed parts strongly furrowed or cracked around ostiole in a radiating, cruciform or star-like pattern. Paraphyses soon dissolving in mucilage. Periphyses well-developed. Asci 8-spored, thin-walled, with a thick apical tholus, I−. Ascospores ellipsoidal or ovoid, colourless, simple.

Bagliettoa, a genus of c. 10 species included in the family Verrucariaceae (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Eriksson 2005), is characterised by thalli immersed in limestone, dolomite or other basic substrata, and a radially furrowed involucrellum. Commonly treated in Verrucaria (Foucard 1990; Purvis et al. 1992; Llimona & Hladun 2001; McCarthy 2001j, 2003c; Coppins 2002b; Halda 2003), species of Bagliettoa appear to represent a natural group and are maintained in this genus by several lichenologists (e.g. Poelt & Vězda 1981; Nimis 1993; Santesson 1993; Scholz 2000; Eriksson et al. 2004; Nimis & Martellos 2003; Santesson et al. 2004). One species is known from New Zealand.