Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Flora (1985: 580).

Chemistry : Cortex and medulla K−, C−, KC−, Pd−; containing barbartic, 4- O -demethylbarbatic and usnic acids.

N: Northland (N of Te Kao, Ahipara gumfield Plateau). S: Nelson (Puponga). On clay-cemented sand pavements, s.l. to 200 m, still rarely collected in New Zealand. North of Te Kao, T. hookeri is locally common on hard-pan sand pavements, co-occurring with Cladia retipora, Cladonia capitellata and Notocladonia cochleata. It is also very common at the Puponga site, a very exposed, open area, wet in winter and very dry in summer. It grows there with Siphula decumbens and Toninia bullata. Known also from West Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania where it occurs on soil, anthills, termite mounds and sandstone boulders (Sammy 1992: 151; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).

Australasian

Illustrations : Jahns (1970: 131, fig. 35; 168, fig. 103: 6); Galloway & Bartlett (1983: 387, fig. 3; 388, fig. 4); McCarthy & Malcolm (2004: 59).

Thysanothecium hookeri is characterised by: the terricolous habit: the continous, yellow-green cortex with conspicuous, glossy, nerve-like ridges; deeply lacerate, spathulate or pectinate apothecia; and barbatic and 4- O -demethylbarbatic acid in the medulla.