Verrucaria inconstans
Description : Thallus epilithic, sparingly cracked to deeply areolate, smooth, matt, medium-grey to blackish grey-brown, becoming somewhat gelatinous when moist, (0.08–)0.1–0.18(–0.4) mm thick. Areolae 0.4–1(–1.5) mm wide, angular, irregular, plane to subconvex. Photobiont green, subglobose to vertically elongate, (4–)5–8(–11) × 4–6(–8) μm, scattered or clustered. Perithecia compound, ⅓–⅔ immersed, very numerous, usually solitary. Apex rounded and smooth, somewhat flattened or excavate; ostiole conspicuous or, more often in a depression 60–120 μm in diam. Involucrellum 0.18–0.35(–0.4) mm diam., brown-black in section, contiguous with exciple and extending to exciple-base level, 60–100(–120) m thick, merging with basal layer (when present). Exciple hyaline at base and sides, darkening towards apex, or with a thin outer greenish black layer, 15–20(–25) μm thick. Periphyses simple, 20–30 × 1.5–2(–3) μm. Paraphyses absent. Asci fissitunicate, clavate to cylindrical-clavate, 53–65 × 16–20 m. Hymenial gel I+ brownish red. Ascospores simple, colourless, ellipsoidal, narrow-ellipsoidal or subcylindrical, (12–)16(–20) × (5.5–)7(–9.5) μm, contents finely granular and guttulate.
S: Southland (Dome Burn, Garvie Mts). On inundated schist stones in alpine stream. Asssociating with Ionaspis lacustris, Verrucaria amnica, V. austroschisticola, V. margacea and V. rheitrophila (McCarthy & Johnson 1997: 387). Known also from the northern uplands of Tasmania where it occurs on limestone and on siliceous rocks in NE and S Tasmania (McCarthy 1995f: 112; 2001j: 185, 2003c).
Australasian
Illustrations : McCarthy (1995f: 110, fig. 2; 111, fig. 3).
Verrucaria inconstans is characterised by: the saxicolous (aquatic rocks) habit; its dark and frequently deeply areolate thallus, small photobiont cells, small perithecia with a thick involucrellum and medium-sized ascospores (McCarthy 1995f: 111).
