Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Sticta pubescens Müll.Arg., Bull. Soc. Roy. Bot. Belg. 31 (2): 28 (1892).

≡Lobaria pubescens (Müll.Arg.) Hellb., Bihang K. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Handl. 21 (3/13): 41 (1896).

≡Sticta muelleriana Zahlbr., Cat. lich. univ. 3 (3): 356 (1925).

=Sticta grandis Stirt., Trans. N. Z. Inst. 31: 72 (1900).

Holotype: New Zealand. Sine loco, Charles Knight – G.

Sticta grandis. Holotype: New Zealand. Canterbury, Oxford Bush, T.W.N. Beckett – BM. Isotype – CHR.

Descriptions : Flora (1985: 456). See also Galloway (1988a: 229).

Chemistry : Methyl evernate (tr.), tenuiorin (major), methyl lecanorate (tr.), methyl gyrophorate, gyrophoric acid (tr.), hopane-15α,22-diol, hopane-6α,7β,22-triol, norstictic (tr.), salazinic(tr.), stictic (major), cryptostictic (tr.), menegazziac (tr.) and constictic (minor) acids and traces of pulvinic acid, pulvinic dilactone and calycin.

N: Gisborne (Lake Waikaremoana), Hawke's Bay (Kaweka Ra.), Wellington (Kaimanawa Ra.). S: Nelson (Cobb Valley) to Fiordland [map in Galloway (1988a: 230, fig. 116)]. Close to and E of the Main Divide, montane to subalpine, 200–1050 m. Primarily a forest species in cool, humid habitats with moderate light and high rainfall, Mainly an epiphyte of Nothofagus (red, mountain and silver beech), it often forms very large rosettes (up to 25 cm diam.) in open beech forest, close to or at forest margins.

Endemic

Exsiccati : Elix (1989: No. 190).

Illustration : Galloway (1988a: 228, fig. 115).

Pseudocyphellaria pubescens is characterised by: linear-elongate to rounded, thick, coriaceous lobes with entire to crenate margins that are often tomentose; a coarsely scabrid-areolate upper surface, wrinkled, pitted to irregularly faveolate, glabrous to entirely tomentose; a white medulla; a green algal phobiont; a densely tomentose lower surface with conspicuous, yellow pseudocyphellae; marginal pedicellate apothecia the disc dark red-brown to black, grey- to white-pruinose when young; ascospores grey-brown, thickened, 1–3-septate; and a chemistry containing hopane triterpenoids, pigments, depsidones and metabolites of the stictic acid complex.