Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Graphina incrustans (Fée) Müll.Arg., Mém. Soc. Phys. Hist nat. Genève 29 (8): 47 (1887).

Description : Thallus yellow-brown to yellow-green, glossy to somewhat matt, smooth, thick, upper layer distinctly prosoplectenchymatous in transverse section. Apothecia fissurine, beginning as a crack in the plane of the thallus, finally gaping, occasionally branched, usually concolorous with thallus, nearly round to elongate and flexuose, 0.5–6 mm long. Disc exposed but too immersed to be readily visible in surface view. Hymenium (45–)75–150 μm tall; epithecium slightly darkened, Exciple rudimentary, yellow to pale red-brown, more or less open, labia quite convergent to spreading, apices of lips sometimes slightly darkened, with much included bark. Ascospores 8 per ascus, 4–6 × 1–2(–3)-locular, 13–35 × 6– 11 μm.

Chemistry : TLC−, all reactions negative.

N: Northland (Poor Knights Is). First recorded from New Zealand by Hayward & Wright (1991). Known also from Florida, Cuba, Dominica, Brazil (Wirth & Hale 1978; Aptroot 2002e).

Pantropical

Illustration : Fée (1825: tab. XIII, fig. 2); Wirth & Hale (1978: 35, fig. 9H; 61, pl. 8F); Staiger (2002: 141, fig. 35; 493, fig. 218).

Fissurina incrustans is characterised by: the corticolous habit; the yellow-brown to yellow-green glossy to matt thallus; round to elongate and flexuose or occasionally branched, fissurine apothecia; muriform (4–6 × 1–2(–3)-locular) ascospores, 13–35 × 6–11 μm; and no demonstrable chemistry.