Work on the second edition of Flora of New Zealand Lichens began in June 1996 and was supported by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology. A dissecting binocular microscope was provided under a grant from the Lottery Board. Assistance with taxonomy of nitrogen-fixing lichens, especially of the genus Placopsis, and provision of a laptop computer was provided by the Marsden Fund administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand. For this assistance I am particularly grateful.

At Landcare Research (Lincoln) Colin Webb, and successive managers, David Penman, Oliver Sutherland, Phil Hart and David Choquenot, warmly supported the Lichen Flora project, allowing me also to work on it largely from an office at home in Central Otago. I owe a tremendous and special debt of gratitude to my present Programme (Biosystematics of New Zealand Plants) Leader, Ilse Breitwieser (Landcare Research, Lincoln), for her continuing warmly enthusiastic encouragement and support, and to Programme colleagues at Lincoln, Murray Dawson, Allan Fife, Peter Heenan, David Glenny, Phil Novis, Rob Smissen and Aaron Wilton, and Sue Gibb, Kerry Ford, Mary Korver and Debby Redmond, for their ready help, advice and friendship. An unfortunate oversight in the first edition of Flora of New Zealand Lichens was my failure to mention a former Herbarium Keeper at the old Botany Division, DSIR, at Lincoln, Tom Rawson. Tom for many years curated the lichen collection at CHR, adding to it his own specimens, but especially the collections from common wayside inroduced trees and shrubs, made by Arthur Healy at Tom's request. Tom was always friendly and welcoming to lichenological visitors to Lincoln. It is my pleasure to acknowledge his contribution here; I hope "better late than never". Thanks Tom!

I have received wonderful support from the Dunedin Office of Landcare Research (and IGNS), especially from Janice Stenning, Beverley Elliott and Elly Lang, from successive Team Leaders, Alan Hewitt and Grant Norbury, and from my scientific colleagues there, Peter Johnson, Ralph Allan, Bill Lee, Deb Wilson, Susan Walker, Belinda Smith-Little, Andy Tulloch, Ian Turnbull, Jane Forsyth, Ben Morrison and Simon Cox. All have contributed a great deal towards making the Dunedin office a stimulating, concerned and rewarding workplace. Landcare Research CSS staff, especially Nick Spencer, Mac McClennan, Guy Harris and Amanda Jones, cheerfully provided informed and helpful computer support to a "computer illiterate" – my debt to them is considerable.

New Zealand collectors and colleagues have willingly provided useful material and/or discussions on particular taxa from often far-flung places, or from collections in their care. Special thanks to them all; they are: Andrew xxviii Allibone (IGNS, Lower Hutt); Jennifer Bannister (Dunedin); John Braggins (Auckland); Ewen Cameron (Auckland); Simon Cox (IGNS, Dunedin); Jane Forsyth (IGNS, Dunedin); Bruce Hayward (Auckland); Peter Johnson (Landcare Research, Dunedin); Allison Knight (Dunedin); Rick Kooperberg (Auckland); Mei Nee Lee (Auckland); Howard and Liz Lintott (Christchurch); Bill and Nancy Malcolm (Nelson); Colin Meurk and Phil Novis (Landcare Research, Lincoln); Rachel Peach (Landcare Research, Dunedin); Barbara Polly (Wellington); Doug Rogan (Auckland/Christchurch); John Steel (Dunedin); Mike Thomas (Dunedin/Arizona); Andy Tulloch (IGNS, Dunedin); Ian Turnbull (IGNS, Dunedin); Carol West (DOC, Invercargill); Deb Wilson (Landcare Research, Dunedin); Hugh Wilson (Hinewai, Banks Peninsula); Anthony Wright (Christchurch); and the late Darrell Wright (Wellington).

University of Otago colleagues have been unfailingly helpful and kind. From the Department of Biochemistry I would especially mention Mervyn Smith, Kevin Farnden, Warren Tate, and Julian Eaton-Rye, and the skilled secretarial help of Trish Whitrow and Frances Grattan. From the Department of Botany I am extremely grateful to Peter Bannister, Paul Guy, Janet Lord and Jennifer Bannister for their help and encouragement and for continuing access to the university herbarium (OTA), and also to Trish Fleming for keeping me in touch with University and Department matters as they affected me.

I owe a very great debt of gratitude to many overseas colleagues and friends who have selflessly provided answers to questions, fulfilled loan requests and offered constructive advice and help. I thank them all very sincerely. They are: Teuvo Ahti (Helsinki); Alan Archer (NSW); Lars Arvidsson (Göteborg); Jarle W. Bjerke (Tromsø); Juliane Blaha (Graz); Othmar Breuss (Vienna); Ernie Brodo (Ottawa); Josephine Camus (BM, London); Brian Coppins (Edinburgh); Paul Diederich (Luxembourg); Christiane Edler (Graz); Stefan Ekman (Bergen); Jack Elix (Canberra); Arve Elvebakk (Tromsø); Ted Esslinger (Fargo); Javier Etayo (Pamplona); Patrik Frödén (Lund); Alan Fryday (East Lansing); Andrea Gargas (Madison); Bernard Goffinet (Connecticut); Trevor Goward (Edgewood Blue, British Columbia); Roland Guderley (Essen); Josef Hafellner (Graz); Sam Hammer (Boston); Elizabeth M. Harris (Columbus, Ohio); David Hawksworth (London/Spain); Aino Henssen (Marburg); Hannes Hertel (Munich); Per Gerhard Ihlen (Bergen); Per Magnus Jørgensen (Bergen); Ingvar Kärnefelt (Lund); Klaus Kalb (Neumarkt); Gintaras Kantvilas (Hobart); Sergei Kondratyuk (Kiev); Scott La Greca (Harvard/London); Genevieve Lewis-Gentry (Harvard); Sureeporn [Pia] Jariangprasert (Chiang Mai); Michaela Lambauer (Graz); Lois Lindblom (Lund/Bergen); Simone Louwhoff (London); Robert Lücking (Chicago); H. Thorsten Lumbsch (Essen/Chicago); Pat McCarthy (Canberra); Helmut Mayrhofer (Graz); Michael Mitchell (Galway); Roland Moberg (Uppsala); Anders Nordin (Uppsala); Zdeněk Palice (Průhonice); Uwe Passauer (Vienna); Jamie Platt (Berkeley); Christian Printzen (Bergen/Frankfurt); Wanda Quilhot (Valparaiso); Gerhard Rambold (Bayreuth); Leo Sancho (Madrid); Rolf Santesson (Uppsala); Christoph Scheidegger (Switzerland); Mark Seaward (Bradford); Markus Setzepfand (Germany); John W. Sheard (Saskatoon); Laurens Sparrius (Gouda); Anders Tehler (Stockholm); Göran Thor (Uppsala); Tor Tønsberg (Bergen); Dagmar Triebel (Bayreuth); Roman Türk (Salzburg); Leif Tibell (Uppsala); Ulli Ullmann (Würzburg); Orvo Vitikainen (Helsinki) [for his uncomplaining and generous responses to numerous demands for H-NYL numbers and their provenances!]; Keith Watson (Glasgow); Mats Wedin (Umeå); and Volkmar Wirth (Stuttgart).

Fieldwork in New Zealand has been a vital activity underpinning many of the new discoveries reported since 1985, in this new version of the Lichen Flora. For help and companionship in the field I should like to thank the following: Sam Hammer, Larry Burrows, PKP (Northland); Peter Johnson, Rick Kooperberg, Ewen Cameron; Mei Nee Lee, John Braggins (Auckland); Peter Johnson, Larry Burrows (Taranaki); Eleanor Sweeney, PKP (Kaikoura); Penny and Bob Manning; John and Margaret Parr, Gerry Eckhoff MP, Arthur Rosie; Gerhard and Didi Klein, Caryl Douglas, Janet Ledingham, PKP (Central Otago); Peter Davies (Shirlmar Station); Guy Williams (Historic Places Trust, Otago); Dunedin Naturalists' Field Club; Mike Thomas, Sam Hammer, PKP (Fiordland, Westland); Nigel Brown, Sue McLaughlin, Lloyd Esler, Eric Edwards, Carol West, Brian Rance, Sam Hammer, PKP (Southland); Peter and Iris Tait, Robyn and Gilbert van Reenen, Ken and Marg Tustin , David Radies, PKP (Stewart Island).

For the loan of type specimens and other material I am grateful to the Directors and Curators of the following herbaria: AK, BG, BM, CANU, CHR, E, FH, H, H-NYL, HO, GLAM, GZU, M, MEL, MSC, O, OTA, S, UPS, US, W, WELT. I am especially grateful to Peter Heenan, Aaron Wilton, Kerry Ford, Sue Gibb and Mary Korver for their kind help and support during my visits to Lincoln and in sending on loan material from CHR. Jennifer Bannister and Vicky Clark (OTA), Manfred Ingerfeld and Reijel Gardiner (CANU), Ewen Cameron, Doug Rogan, John Braggins and Mei Nee Lee (AK); Patrick Brownsey, Wendy Nelson, Barbara Polly, Tim Galloway and Simon Whitaker (WELT) are all warmly thanked for their ready assistance in providing information on specimens/collections in their care and for arranging loans. Bill Malcolm (Nelson) sent me critical material from his personal herbarium for which I am grateful.

In a work of this kind, continuous consultation of the extant literature is a given. In faraway New Zealand, lack of lichen literature used to be a serious and inhibiting problem. Luckily no longer, thanks to the earth-shrinking advantages of fax, email and, recently, online browsing of relevant journals on the Web. I have made very many demands on the kindness of librarians, archivists and lichenologists both at home and abroad, and their assistance and support in this enterprise deserves adequate recognition. It is therefore a very great pleasure to me to thank them here. They are: Lars Arvidsson (Göteborg); Peter Johnston, Peter Buchanan, Shaun Pennycook (Landcare Research, Auckland); Margot Bowden, Trish Faulkner, Ruth Lewis, Tanja Webster (Landcare Research, Lincoln); Brian Coppins (Edinburgh); Gina Douglas (Linnean Society, London); Malcolm Beasley, Simone Louwhoff, William Purvis, Josephine Camus (Natural History Museum, London); Aino Henssen (Marburg); Hannes Hertel (Munich); Klaus Kalb (Neumarkt/Obf.); Roland Moberg (Uppsala); Sam Hammer (Boston); Jack Elix (Canberra); Mark Seaward (Bradford); Val Parata (Hocken Library, University of Otago, Dunedin); Orvo Vitikainen (Helsinki); Helmut Mayrhofer, Julia Blaha, Christiane Edler, Josef Hafellner (Graz); Michaela Lambauer (Graz [for the figure of spore types in Rinodina]); Jarle Bjerke, Arve Elvebakk (Tromsø); Uwe Becker (Köln); Wanda Quilhot (Viña del Mar); Jack Elix, Pat McCarthy (Canberra), Alan Archer (Sydney) and Gintaras Kantvilas (Hobart).

John Marris (Lincoln University) kindly alerted me to the association of slapingid beetles with southern coastal populations of Pertusaria and associated lichens.

Christine Bezar (Landcare Research, Lincoln) edited the completed manuscript with exemplary care, for which she has my profound admiration and grateful thanks. Formatting/styling of the completed Flora files for printing was patiently carried out by Beverly Elliott (Landcare Dunedin) and my sincere thanks to her for this major effort and contribution. To my friendly and helpful publishers at Manaaki Whenua Press, Greg Comfort and Catherine Montgomery, my grateful thanks and admiration, for their unfailingly enthusiastic and sympathetic approach to the printing and publishing of this large undertaking. Likewise to Aaron Wilton for much constructive help and advice. For assistance with funding of printing/publication costs I sincerely thank the following for their financial support: the TFBIS Programme administered by the Department of Conservation (Alan White); the President and Council of the Wellington Botanical Society for the Wellington Botanical Society Jubilee Award 2003; the British Lichen Society, and our good friend Eleanor Sweeney (Christchurch).

Special thanks to two long-term colleagues and friends who have both enthusiastically and helpfully supported my interest in lichens over the past 40 years. Firstly, the late Prof. Geoff Baylis (Dunedin), who encouraged me to begin serious collecting of New Zealand lichens back in 1962 and who provided small grants from time to time for fieldwork which provided the initial basis on which my subsequent career in lichenology was built. And secondly, and very warmly, to my former Director at Botany Division, DSIR, Dr Eric Godley (Christchurch), who really made possible for me a professional career in lichenology, and who gave me much else besides, not least a shared passionate interest in the Elgar 'Cello concerto and many valuable discussions on paintings, music and literature as a leaven to lichenology. Eric it was who originally conceived the concept of a New Zealand Lichen Flora, and this expanded second edition is a tribute to his faith in, and support of, the initial project and its aftermath. He also added perceptive comments on, and corrections to, the manuscript of the present Flora and my heartfelt thanks to him for these.

My friend and colleague Pier Luigi Nimis (Trieste) wrote the Foreword, and my warm thanks to him for his generous encomium.

Lastly, I am profoundly grateful to my wife Patricia (PKP), for her tremendous support, love, patience and enthusiasm, both at home and in the field, during the protracted course of this volume's preparation, writing, editing and proof-reading. She, Lily and Tiger Tim are the unsung heroes of my lichen work.