Leptogium philorheuma
Description : Thallus loosely attached to substratum or subpulvinate, 0.5–2(–4) cm diam., rather thin, ±translucent when wet, 80–150 μm thick, dull lead-grey to olivaceous or blackened. Lobes rounded to ±obovate, sometimes elongated, flat to ascending, undulate, 1.5–5 mm wide. Margins sinuous, entire or ragged–crenate, in places ±phyllidiate. Phyllidia simple to branched, flattened, to 1 mm tall, concolorous with thallus or slightly browned at tips. Upper surface smooth or roughened, matt, without isidia or wrinkles. Lower surface smooth to roughened, matt, concolorous with upper surface or paler, occasionally with minute rhizines. Apothecia rather sparse, laminal, ±sessile to adnate, 0.5–1(–2) mm diam., disc concave to plane, ±convex with age, brown to dark-brown or blackened, thalline exciple thin, ±persistent, concolorous with thallus or pale-cream, entire. Ascospores ellipsoidal, submuriform, apices rounded, 20–27 × 8–10 μm.
N: South Auckland (Hunua Ra., Tuakau). S: Marborough (Queen Charlotte Sound), Canterbury (Lake Ohau), Otago (Lake Alta the Remarkables, Teviot River Gorge, Morrison's Creek Dunedin, Otago Peninsula), Southland (Doubtful Sound). Still rather poorly collected in New Zealand. The few specimens seen are from damp soil, among mosses on streamside rocks (sometimes ±submerged), encircling stems of a rush in brackish water in an estuary, and from bark of Alnus on a riverbank, s.l. to 1800 m (map in Galloway 1999: 346, fig. 16). New Zealand material seen closely resembles Australian specimens named and collected from streamside rocks at Kyneton, Victoria, by the Rev. F.R.M. Wilson, the author of the species (material ex NSW 180373 – CHR 436302, 436303). Known also from SE Australia (Verdon 1992a: McCarthy 2003c, 2006).
Australasian
Leptogium philorheuma is characterised by: the terricolous/saxicolous/muscicolous habit (streamside rocks, sometimes inundated); the olive-green to green-black lobes with rather ragged to phyllidiate margins).
