Flora of New Zealand Series

Holotype: New Zealand. Otago, Lee Stream Valley, SW of Dunedin, 2 km N of Lee Stream School, c. 490 m, 170º06'E, 45º46's, 23.ix.1981, H. Mayrhofer 2199 – GZU. Isotype – CHR 528672.

Description : Thallus epilithic, whitish, yellowish to pale-grey, warty or areolate, prothallus blackish or evanescent. Apothecia lecanorine, adnate to sessile, to 0.8 mm diam.; disc black, slightly white-pruinose, plane to convex. Thalline margins, persistent, entire, crenate, concolorous with thallus. Parathecium hyaline. Epithecium pale-brownish, with a compact, granular epipsamma (Pd+, orange to red crystals). Hymenium 90–110 μm tall. Paraphyses to 1 μm thick, often branched, apices 2–4 μm diam. Hypothecium to 150 μm thick, K−. Asci Lecanora -type. Ascospores Milvina -type (grading into Physcia -type), spore ontogeny type A, torus well-developed, 16–22 × 10–13 μm, wall finely warted.

Chemistry : K+ yellow, Pd+ red or orange; containing atranorin and pannarin.

S: Otago (Alexandra Lookout, Little Valley Rd, Maungatua, Cave Hill, Lee Stream, Lamb Hill). On schist rocks, often on edges of vertical faces and overhangs. Known also from SE Australia and Tasmania (Mayrhofer 1984b: 520–521; McCarthy 2003c, 2006; Kaschik 2006). Recorded by Zahlbruckner (1941: 377) – as R. exigua f. saxicola [material from Lamb Hill].

Australasian

Illustrations : Mayrhofer (1983: 275, fig. 15); Kaschik (2006: 79, fig. 43).

Rinodina murrayi is characterised by: the saxicolous habit; the crowded, warty yellowish or yellow-grey thallus; abundant apothecia; ascospores of Milvina -type; and the presence of atranorin and pannarin.