Flora of New Zealand Series

Lectotype: New Zealand. Canterbury, Godley Peaks, c. 750 m. "Ad ramos Hymenantherae alpinae cum Haematommate babingtonii", H.H. Allan, CHR381014!

Thallus foliose, orbicular, loosely attached, 1-5 cm diam., corticolous. Lobes short, 1-3 mm long and to 1 mm wide, margins crenulate, imbricate. Upper surface yellow or yellowish-green or greyish-green, matt, epruinose. Lower surface white, rhizinate. Rhizines short, white, sub-marginal, of horizontal, white fibrils, projecting beyond margins. Apothecia numerous, covering most of thallus, 1-3 mm diam., pedicellate, disc plane to subconvex, yellow-orange, margins thin, entire, concolorous with thallus. Ascospores 11-13 × 6-8 µm. Pycnidia globose, 200 µm diam., singly in prominent orange warts on upper surface. Conidia cylindrical, 3 × 0.8 µm.

S: Canterbury, Otago, Southland. East of the Main Divide in Canterbury and Otago, lowland and coastal in Otago-Southland. On bark, rarely on twigs.

Endemic

X. novozelandica appears genuinely rare, although quite widely distributed. In some specimens from coastal areas, projecting fibrils may be rare or absent and plants difficult to separate from X. parietina. The species is distinguished from the latter in the thinner, narrower, crenulate marginal lobes with prominent pycnidia, and the presence of sub-marginal to marginal fibrils projecting from the lower surface.