Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Thallus effuse, thin, pale creamish grey to ±translucent, of irregular areolae to 0.4 mm diam., scattered over a very thin, whitish prothallus and coalescing into a smooth to ±tuberculate-cracked crust, without isidia or soredia. Apothecia disc-like, pale-grey, numerous, scattered or clustered, margins inrolled and obscuring disc at first, 0.3–0.5(–0.6) mm diam., discs pale-orange, epruinose. Ascospores 8 per ascus, ovate to ellipsoidal, irregularly biseriate, 24–38(–48) × (10–)14–21(–24) μm.

Chemistry : TLC−, all reactions negative.

N: Gisborne (near Lake Waikaremoana). S: Westland (Alexander Ra. Camp Creek). On bark (see Setzepfand & Sipman 2004). Still very poorly collected and understood in New Zealand. Known also from Australia (New South Wales and Tasmania) and southern Chile (Kantvilas 1990b; Archer 1997, 2004a; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).

Austral

Illustrations : Kantvilas (1990b: 291, fig. 1D; 295, fig. 3C).

Pertusaria jamesii is characterised by: the corticolous habit; the disc-like apothecia; asci with 8 small, biseriate ascospores; and a negative chemistry.