Flora of New Zealand Series

Thallus dorsiventral, heteromerous, foliose, lobate to occasionally subcrustose or subfruticose, loosely to closely attached, saxicolous or terricolous. Lobes 0.1-5 mm diam., short and rounded to linear-elongate, flat to distinctly convex to pulvinate or subpannose. Upper surface brown or brownish-black, with or without isidia, lacking pseudocyphellae and soredia or very rarely sorediate. Photobiont green, Trebouxia. Medulla white, lower surface ± flat to weakly channelled. Rhizinate or not. Rhizines simple or once-branched towards tips. Apothecia lecanorine, sessile to subpedicellate, disc concave to plane or subconvex, eperforate, epruinose, brown or red-brown, matt or shining, margins entire or crenulate-striate. Ascospores 8 per ascus, ellipsoid, colourless, simple. Pycnidia uniform, immersed in upper surface, ostiole black, punctiform ± common in fertile species, rare or absent in non-fertile species. Conidia bifusiform, ± uniform. Chemistry: Cortex blue-green to violet with HNO3, medulla containing orcinol depsides, orcinol depsidones, ß-orcinol depsidones, ß-orcinol depsides and fatty acids.

Neofuscelia is a generic segregate of Parmelia sens. lat. , and with Allantoparmelia and Melanelia accommodates the so-called brown-Parmeliae [Esslinger J. Hattori bot. Lab. 42: 1-211 (1977); Mycotaxon 7: 45-54 (1978)]. It is characterised by a blue-green cortical reaction to nitric acid, a lack of pseudocyphellae and soredia, chemical diversity, a restriction to rock or soil substrates, and a distinctly temperate distribution centred in the Southern Hemisphere. However the genus as delimited at present is heterogeneous and further study may well place species elsewhere. Of the 67 described species, 20 occur in New Zealand, 10 of which are endemic. The genus has yet to be studied critically in the field in New Zealand. Esslinger's (1977) account relies heavily on chemical differences for the separation of taxa; his treatment is followed here but further study, especially of morphological and chemical variation within populations may well lead to a reduction in the number of species recorded from New Zealand.