Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Thallus in irregular rosettes or loosely spreading, 4–7(–9) cm diam., loosely attached centrally, margins free and ±ascending. Lobes narrow, 2–5 mm wide, rarely to 10 mm wide, irregularly to complexly branched, ±imbricate centrally, ±discrete at margins. Margins sinuous or ragged, dentate-incised to ±richly phyllidiate, slightly thickened below and occasionally also ridged above, occasionally with protruding yellow pseudocyphellae. Upper surface dark slate-blue to blue-black when wet, pale glaucous greyish when dry, undulate, matt, smooth, wrinkled to subfaveolate, especially at lobe apices, very fragile, friable when dry, pliable when wet. Phyllidia common and conspicuous, mainly marginal, very variable, ±dorsiventral, simple to coralloid-branched, 0.2–1(–3) mm tall, fringing lobes with clustered, finger-like proliferations. Maculae occasional to frequent, white or pale-yellowish, ±distinctly reticulate, following shallow ridges and in faveolae (×10 lens), isidia, pseudocyphellae and soredia absent. Medulla white. Photobiont cyanobacterial. Lower surface pale yellowish white to buff-brown at margins, darkening centrally, tomentum pale-whitish to grey or buff, to brown-black centrally, rather sparse at margins, thick and entangled centrally. Pseudocyphellae yellow, low-conical, scattered, ±rounded, 0.1 mm diam. or less, margins only slightly raised, decorticate area flat to convex. Pycnidia sparse, solitary, scattered at margins and along laminal ridges, ostiole red-brown, punctate-depressed, 0.1 mm diam. or less. Apothecia not seen.

Chemistry : Pulvinic acid, pulvinic dilactone, 6α-acetoxyhopane-7β–22-diol (tr.), 7β-acetoxyhopane-6α, 22-diol (tr.), hopane-7β,22-diol (tr.), hopane-6α,7β,22-triol (major), tenuiorin, methyl gyrophorate, gyrophoric acid (tr.), ±physciosporin (tr.), stictic, cryptostictic and constictic acids.

N: Wellington (Wairarapa). Epiphytic on tree bark. Still very poorly known and collected in New Zealand. Also known from Fiji, Papua New Guinea and E Australia (Galloway & Kemp 1993; Galloway 1994b; Galloway et al. 2001b; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).

Palaeotropical

Illustration : Galloway (1994b: 126, fig. 8).

Pseudocyphellaria crocatoides is a characteristic species of the P. crocata group and has a white medulla, a cyanobacterial photobiont, yellow pseudocyphellae on the lower surface and a chemistry containing stictic acid metabolites, hopane-6α, 7β, 22-triol as the dominant triterpenoid and the pigments calycin, pulvinic acid and pulvinic dilactone. It is distinguished by the distinctive marginal (rarely laminal) lobulate proliferations, and a smooth upper surface without isidia or soredia, characters that separate it from P. crocata, which is yellow-sorediate; from P. dozyana, which is white-sorediate; from P. desfontainii, which has terete to squamiform isidia; from P. neglecta, which has phyllidia that erode to become pseudosorediate; and from P. gilva, which has entire margins, and is without soredia, isidia, phyllidia or lobulate proliferations.