Wawea fruticulosa
Description : Thallus fruticose, olive-grey to brown, often blackened at apices, forming dense cushions when growing on soil and bryophytes or effuse mats when epiphytic, to 10 cm wide and 0.5–1 mm tall, attached by rhizohyphae. Lobes ascending to erect, ±dichotomously branched (1.2–)1.4–2.5(–5) mm long, 0.1–0.3 mm thick, with longitudinal wrinkles when dry. Photobiont Nostoc, in chains or clusters, ±evenly dispersed, cells 2.5–5(–7) μm diam. Thallus in section 80–260 μm thick, with a cortex comprising one or two rows of isodiametric cells, 6–13 μm diam. Apothecia brown to blackish, biatorine, to 2.5 mm diam., frequently coalescing, soon convex to to globose, at maturity stipitate and multi-divided. Hymenium (70–)100–140(–150) μm tall, gelatinous matrix brown in upper parts; paraphyses 2–2.5 μm thick, strongly conglutinated. Hypothecium (25–)45–50 μm thick, stipes 200–600 μm tall. Exciple 30–70 μm thick, of isodiametric, thin-walled cells. Asci cylindrical, 80–140 × 10–13 μm, I+ blue. Ascospores fusiform, 1-septate, occasionally constricted at septum, with smooth walls, 17–22 × 6– 8 μm. Conidiophores included in ascomatal primordia, short-celled, producing lateral and terminal conidia. Conidia bacillar, (1.5–)2–4 × 1 μm.
Chemistry : TLC−, all reactions negative.
N: Gisborne (Mt Hikurangi). S: Nelson (Turks Cap Ra., NW Nelson). Alpine, in high-rainfall areas among mosses in seepage crevices and on solifluction surfaces in fellfield, associating with species of Siphula and Toninia bullata. Also in Tasmania (Henssen & Kantvilas 1985; Kantvilas & Jarman 1999; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).
Austral
Illustrations : Henssen & Kantvilas (1985: 87, fig. 1; 89, fig. 3; 90, fig. 4; 92, fig. 5; 94, fig. 7); Kantvilas & Jarman (1999: 155); Lumbsch et al. (2001: 3); McCarthy & Malcolm (2004: 60).
Wawea fruticulosa is characterised by: the muscicolous habit; slender, rather furrowed, cylindrical lobes; and the red-brown apothecia that occur either singly or in brain-like clusters. Thallus anatomy of Wawea fruticulosa corresponds to certain groups in the Collemataceae, especially species of Leptogium, by the presence of a simple cortex comprising one or two layers of isodiametric cells. The developmental morphology of the ascomata is of special interest because of the simultaneous occurrence of ascogonia and short-celled, branched conidiophores producing conidia terminally and laterally. The external formation of generative tissue as an outgrowth of the lobes, and the multidivision of the hymenium in ageing apothecia, corresponds to ascocarp ontogeny in the Northern Hemisphere genus Arctomia (Henssen & Kantvilas 1985). Thalli and apothecia vary in colour and shape depending on environmental conditions. In shaded sites the lobes are longer, olive-grey and form loose mats, and the apothecia are red-brown. In exposed sites, both thallus and apothecia appear dark-brown to blackish, and the lobes are crowded, erect, and shorter.
