Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Placodium cirrochrooides Vain., Voy. S.Y. Belgica Bot. Lich.: 24 (1903).

Description : Thallus squamulose, spreading in coalescent patches 1–5(–10 or more) cm diam.; squamules somewhat scattered to closely contiguous, or separated by deep cracks and appearing areolate, to imbricate; rosette-forming to irregular, 0.5–3(–5) mm diam. Surface chrome-yellow, yellow-brown, olive-brown to reddish orange, plane, undulating, smooth to minutely wrinkled or subplicate; margins of squamules entire to minutely lobulate (×10 lens), with or without soredia. Soredia golden yellow to mustard-yellow, granular, developing in small, labriform soralia at margins and on lower side of squamules, at length eroding margins and spreading to upper surface, sometimes forming a thick, diffract-areolate sorediate crust and totally obscuring thallus, soredia also commonly spreading onto bare soil beyond margins of squamules. Apothecia occasional to numerous and closely crowded, totally obscuring thallus, sessile, constricted at base, round to irregular and contorted through mutual pressure, 0.1–0.8(–1.2) mm diam., disc orange-brown to red-brown, matt, subconcave to plane, sometimes with irregular, pale plugs of sterile tissue centrally; thalline margin not apparent; proper margin persistent, prominent, entire, raised, matt or glossy, noticeably paler than disc. Epithecium densely granular, yellow-brown, 10–15 μm thick. Hymenium colourless, without oil droplets, 60–75 μm tall. Paraphyses slender, 1.5–2 μm thick, apices slightly swollen, to 4 μm diam., submoniliform, branched. Asci cylindrical, 55–65 × 12–15 μm, 8-spored. Ascospores oblong-ellipsoidal, apices rounded, 11–15(–16.5) × 6.5–8.5 μm; septum 2–3.5 μm thick, c. ¼ length of spore.

Chemistry : Thallus and apothecia K+ reddish purple; containing parietin.

S: Nelson (Cable Bay), Marlborough (Te Puru Pelorus Sound), Canterbury (Pigeon Bay Banks Peninsula, Lake Ellesmere), Otago (Roxburgh, Lake Onslow Road, Sutton Salt Lake, Port Chalmers, Hooper's Inlet). A consolidating species of crusty dry soil, and clay of roadside banks in full sun, but very fragile and easily crumbling after collection. Also growing at base of schist rock outcrops in sand or sometimes also directly on schist plates having a thin veneer of sand. Associating with Acarospora, Cladonia, Peltula, Teloschistes velifer. Coastal populations associating with C. sublobulata, Lecanora dispersa, Rinodina blastidiata. Known also from Antarctica, South Georgia, Prince Edward Is, Marion I., Bouvetøya, South Sandwich Is, South Orkney Is, and South Shetland Is where it was thought to be an Antarctic endemic (Vainio 1903; Søchting & Øvstedal 1992; Øvstedal & Gremmen 2001; Øvstedal & Lewis Smith 2001).

Austral

Illustration : Vainio (1903: tab. 1, fig. 3).

Caloplaca cirrochrooides is characterised by: the terricolous habit; the squamulose thallus; marginal, labriform soralia; occasional to crowded apothecia, the disc orange-brown to red-brown, sometimes with plugs of sterile tissue centrally; and oblong-ellipsoidal ascospores, 11–15(–16.5) × 6.5–8.5 μm; septum 2–3.5 μm thick.