Flora of New Zealand Series

Type : Sarcogyne corrugata Flot. (see Jørgensen & Santesson 1993: 885).

Description : Thallus crustose, superficial to commonly endolithic; prothallus absent. Photobiont green, chlorococcoid including Myrmecia and Dictyochloropsis. Ascomata apothecia, sessile or immersed in pits, red-black to black, pruinose or not. Thalline exciple absent. Proper exciple black and friable, persistent or excluded. Epithecium pale reddish brown to dark-brown. Hymenium colourless, I+ blue. Hypothecium colourless to brown, often thick. Hamathecium of paraphyses, simple to sparsely branched, regularly septate, the end cells ±swollen and often brown-capitate. Asci multispored, elongate-clavate to obclavate, often swollen in the lower third when mature, strongly thickened at apex, the apical dome K/I−; outer coat I+ blue. Ascospores narrowly ellipsoidal, colourless, simple, smooth, lacking a distinct perispore. Conidiomata pycnidia, immersed in ±multilocular black warts. Conidia subglobose to ellipsoidal, simple, colourless.

Chemistry : nil.

Sarcogyne is a cosmopolitan genus of 28 species (Kirk et al. 2001), included in the family Acarosporaceae (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Reeb et al. 2004; Eriksson 2005), but much in need of revision. Northern Hemisphere monographs (Magnusson 1935, 1936) contain much useful information but are now badly out of date. Vězda (1978) segregated a group of species into a new genus, Polysporina (q.v.), on the basis of anatomical characters, e.g. the reaction of the apothecial wall, the richly branched and anastomosing paraphyses, and the presence of a carbonised epithecium. Seppelt (1998) has recently discussed Sarcogyne in Antarctica. Sarcogyne is characterised by: a crustose thallus that is ecorticate and poorly developed; adnate, sessile to subpedicellate apothecia with a thin, black proper margin; clavate, unitunicate, multi-spored, thick-walled asci, the apical dome K/I−, the outer coat I+ blue; and ascospores that are smooth-walled, simple, colourless, ellipsoidal to globose, 3–6 μm long. Taxa commonly occur on basicolous substrate but some species are also known from siliceous rocks. One species is presently known from New Zealand (McCarthy 1992b).