Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Flora (1985: 607).

S: Southland (Bluff). A: C: On coastal rocks below high tide mark. Collected by Greta Du Rietz from Bluff in 1927, and from Laurie Harbour (Auckland Is) and Tucker Cove (Campbell I.) by G. Einar Du Rietz in March–April 1927 (Santesson 1939: 17). A widespread species found on the Atlantic seaboard of Great Britain, Europe, Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland, North America, Siberia and in Tierra del Fuego, Falkland Is, South Georgia, Marion I., Prince Edward I., Bouvetøya and the Antarctic Peninsula (Santesson 1939; Lamb 1948a; Redón 1985; Øvstedal 1986; Øvstedal & Gremmen 2001; Øvstedal & Lewis Smith 2001: 359; Santesson et al. 2004; Elvebakk & Bjerke 2006).

Cosmopolitan

Illustrations : Zschacke (1934: 193, fig. 84); Lamb (1948a: 14, fig. 3C); Foucard (1990: fig. 341); Dobson (1992: 353; 2000: 402; 2005: 451); Flenniken & Gibson (2003: 42, 47, 48).

Verrucaria mucosa is characterised by: the coastal rock habit; the thick, glossy, grass-green (in shade) to blackish (exposed habitats), smooth, subgelatinous thallus without ridges and often bounded by a whitish marginal prothallus; small, dome-shaped perithecia, 0.1–0.2 mm diam., immersed in thallus and often seen only as black dots on the surface; the black, plate-like involucrellum, not extending downwards; the pale exciple; and small ascospores, 7–10(–13) × 4–7 μm. Variation in V. mucosa is discussed in Santesson (1939: 5–6).