Flora of New Zealand Series

Holotype: New Zealand. South I., Nelson, Red Hills, 1050 m, on Leptospermum scoparium, 30.xii.1978, J.K. Bartlett s.n. – BM. Isotype – CHR.

Description : Thallus orbicular to irregularly spreading, 5–10(–20) cm diam., corticolous or muscicolous or terricolous (among grasses), closely attached centrally, free and ascending at margins and apices. Lobes broadly rounded 0.5–2.5 mm diam., discrete at margins, imbricate centrally, plane to irregularly undulate-concave and appearing somewhat cochleate. Margins entire in part to ±irregularly and shallowly crenate or lacerate, becoming phyllidiate, sinuous, ascending in parts in others ±revolute, slightly thickened, sinuses prominent, semicircular. Upper surface lettuce-green with a yellowish tinge when moist, pale-greenish or greyish yellow or buff, apices suffused red-brown when dry, smooth or minutely wrinkled or impressed, matt, in places with minute, solitary or clustered pale-fawnish dots or papillae, somewhat coriaceous, without soredia, isidia, maculae or pseudocyphellae. Phyllidia mainly marginal, rarely laminal along breaks or tears, 0.5–1 mm tall, solitary to densely clustered, dorsiventral, rarely somewhat terete, simple, bifurcating to ±coralloid, cuneate, flabellate to ±pectinate, upper surface concolorous with thallus, apices often inflated, brownish, lower surface pale-buff or brown, glabrous or occasionally with small, white, fleck-like pseudocyphellae. Medulla white. Photobiont green. Lower surface pale-whitish or yellow-buff, glabrous in a ±wide marginal zone, darkening centrally and there densely tomentose, tomentum pale-buff to brown, thick, woolly, ragged, entangled, cortex smooth to slightly wrinkled–ridged. Pseudocyphellae white, scattered, minute, fleck-like close to margins, prominent, excavate, 0.5–1.5 mm diam., round to irregular centrally, often with a prominent margin, sunk in tomentum, decorticate area plane or somewhat concave, white, granular. Apothecia and pycnidia not seen.

Chemistry : 7β-acetoxyhopane-22-ol, hopane-7β, 22-diol (tr.), hopane-15α,22-diol, norstictic, stictic, cryptostictic, constictic, hyperstictic (tr.) and usnic acids.

S: Nelson (Red Hills), Canterbury (Mt Faust above Boyle River), Otago (Poolburn Reservoir, Lake Onslow), Southland (Symmetry Peaks above Lake Wakatipu). Most commonly a subalpine to high-alpine grassland species in high-light habitats with sufficient moisture, often developed on south-facing slopes, also known as an epiphyte of subalpine shrubs. Known also from Juan Fernandez (Masafuera and Masatierra) in collections made by Profs Tod Steussy, T. Lammers and O. Parra, and recently sent to me for identification by Prof. Per Magnus Jørgensen (Bergen).

Austral

Illustration : Galloway (1988a: 99, fig. 40).

Pseudocyphellaria corbettii is characterised by: broadly rounded lobes; marginal phyllidia; a rather coriaceous, yellow upper cortex; a white medulla; a green photobiont; a densely tomentose lower surface with conspicuous, white pseudocyphellae; and a distinctive chemistry of two hopanes, the stictic acid aggregate and usnic acid. It is related to the taxa P. glabra, P. freycinetii (South America), P. homoeophylla and P. soredioglabra (Tasmania).