Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Lichen gelidus L., Mantissa Pl. 1: 133 (1767).

Description : Flora (1985: 402).

Chemistry : Thallus K−, C+ red, KC+ red, Pd−; containing gyrophoric acid.

S: Otago (Flagstaff, Mt Cargill, Mt Teviot, Blue Mts), Southland (Stirling Point, Bluff).On rock outcrops from s.l. to 1000 m. Known also from both Northern and Southern Hemispheres where it has a wide distribution, being recorded by Lamb (1947) from Great Britain and Ireland (Purvis et al. 1992), Scandinavia (Santesson 1993; Moberg & Carlin 1996; Santesson et al. 2004), Iceland (Thomson 1972; Bjarnason 1991), Spitzbergen, Jan Mayen (Sheard 1962), Greenland (Thomson 1972; Hansen 1995), Europe (Poelt 1974; Nimis 1993; Nimis & Martellos 2003), Macaronesia (Aptroot 1989; Purvis & James 1993), North America (Thomson 1972, 1979; Esslinger & Egan 1995; Brodo 1995; Brodo et al. 2001), Siberia, and Java (Zahlbruckner & Mattick 1956). Also recorded from Hawai'i (Magnusson 1955) and Australia (Filson 1996; McCarthy 2003c, 2006). In South America it is known from Venezuela (Marcano et al. 1996), Bolivia (Nylander 1861), and from the far south of Chile and Argentina (Galloway, 2002d).

Bipolar

Illustrations : Lamb (1947: pl.1, fig. 4); Martin & Child (1972: 116, pl. 28); Wirth (1995b: 744); Hansen (1995: 107); Lumbsch (1997b: 19, fig. 7A, C, E, F; 36, fig. 19A–F; 53, fig. 32A, B); Malcolm & Malcolm (2000: 54); Purvis (2000: 27 – as P. lambii).

Placopsis gelida is characterised by: neat, thalline rosettes; large central, deeply plicate cephalodia without pruina; eroding soralia generally delimited by a sharply defined and slightly raised margin, either scattered and discrete to confluent and covering much of the thallus; farinose greenish to green-grey soredia; and rather rare, scattered apothecia.