Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Lecanora cyamidia Stirt., Proc. phil. Soc. Glasgow 10: 305 (1877).

≡Sarrameana cyamidia (Stirt) Kantvilas & Vězda, Nordic J. Bot. 16 (3): 329 (1996).

=Lecanora cyrtospora C.Knight, Trans. N. Z. Inst. 16: 401 (1884).

=Lecanora ochrotropa Zahlbr., Denkschr. Akad. Wiss. Wien math.-naturwiss. Kl. 104: 343 (1941).

Lectotype: New Zealand. Wellington, J. Buchanan – BM [fide Galloway (1985a: 215)].

Lecanora cyrtospora. Lectotype: New Zealand. Sine loco (probably Wellington), Charles Knight – BM [fide Galloway (1985a: 215)].

Lecanora ochrotropa. Lectotype: New Zealand. Otago, Tautuku Bush, on dead Nothofagus menziesii, J.S. Thomson T 1761 [ZA 591] – CHR 345884 [fide Galloway (1985a: 215). Isolectotypes – BM, OTA 029439.

Description : Flora (1985: 215 – as Lecanora cyamidia).

Chemistry : Cortex K+ yellow, Pd−; containing thamnolic acid.

N: South Auckland (Pureora), to Wellington. S: Nelson (Mt Arthur, West Bay Lake Rotoiti), Marlborough (Queen Charlotte Sound), Canterbury (Avalanche Peak Arthur's Pass, Hawdon River, Craigieburn Ra.), Otago (Lake Ohau, Mt Cargill, Maungatua, Lammermoor Ra., Catlins). St: (Port Pegasus). A: (Ranui Cove). Forming distinctive whitish bands or patches on the bark of forest trees and on subalpine scrub, s.l. to 1000 m, sometimes associating with Pyrrhospora laeta. Predominantly lowland and coastal, also inland, known from the following phorophytes: Carpodetus serratus, Dracophyllum longifolium, D. traversii, Melicytus ramiflorus, Metrosideros umbellata, Nothofagus menziesii, N. solandri var. cliffortioides. The record of L. cyamidia from Australia (Elix & Lumbsch 1993) is referable to L. solenospora (Kantvilas & Vězda 1996: 330).

Endemic

Exsiccati : Vězda (1997e: No. 308).

Illustrations : Knight (1884: pl. XXXIX, fig. 6 – as Lecanora cyrtospora); Kantvilas & Vězda (1996: 327, fig. 1A–B); Malcolm & Galloway (1997: 123, 146, 156); Malcolm & Malcolm (2000: 118); Lumbsch et al. (2001: 26) – all as Sarrameana cyamidia.

Loxospora cyamidia is characterised by: the corticolous habit; the dingy, creamish white to greyish, continuous to verrucose–papillate thallus; prominent scattered, sessile to subpedicellate apothecia with dark red-brown to somewhat blackened discs, densely covered in grey-white pruina and with persistent, swollen, lecanorine margins concolorous with thallus; the hymenium is inspersed with oil droplets; ascospores are fabiform, curved, apices curved, contents oily–granular, 20–30(–34) × 7–10(–13) μm. L. cyamidia is closely related to L. solenospora (the two taxa share an identical thallus chemistry and apothecial tissues inspersed with yellow-brown to red-brown granules that turn yellow as they dissolve in K). Ascospores of the two species are similar but distinctly and disjunctly broader in L. cyamidia, which also has a generally more robust thallus, larger apothecia with persistent pruina, and a distinctly lecanorine apothecial margin reminiscent of species of Ochrolechia.