Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Lecidea palmicola Spreng., K. Vet.-Akad. nya Handl. 1: 46 (1820).

=Coccocarpia cronia (Tuck.) Vain., Annls Acad. Sci. fenn. ser. A, 6: 103 (1915).

≡Parmelia cronia Tuck., Proc. Amer. Acad. 1: 228 (1848). [For additional synonymy see Arvidsson (1983: 72)].

=Vischia coccocarpoides C.W.Dodge, Nova Hedwigia 19 (3–4): 467 (1971) ["1970"].

Vischia coccocarpoides. Holotype: New Zealand. South Island, Canterbury, Sugarloaf near Cass, on mosses, v.1958, L. Visch C19 – CANU.

Description : Flora (1985: 128).

N: Three Kings Is to Wellington (York Bay). S: Nelson (Kaihoka Lakes, St Arnaud Ra.) to Southland. St: Mt Anglem to Port Pegasus (Hayward & Lumbsch 1992). A: Widely distributed from s.l. to 2010 m, colonising a variety of substrata, coastal and inland in high-humidity habitats. An epiphyte of trees and shrubs in coastal broadleaved forests as well as from inland Nothofagus forests; also on clay banks, bryophyte cushions in subalpine grasslands and on mossy rocks in alpine grassland and fellfield. Known also from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Brazil, and Australia (Arvidsson 1983; Arvidsson & Nash 2002: 161; Wolseley et al. 2002; Becker 2002; Aptroot 2002e; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).

Pantropical

Illustrations : Martin & Child (1972: 64, pl. 8 – as Coccocarpia cronia); Arvidsson & Galloway (1979: 241, fig. 1A, B); Arvidsson (1983: 12, fig. 5; 13, fig. 6B; 15, fig. 8B; 28, fig. 22A, B; 73, figs 52A–C); Swinscow & Krog (1988: 64, fig. 25); Arvidsson (1992: fig. 46A); Grgurinovic (1992: 218, fig. 66); Malcolm & Galloway (1997: 98); Makhija et al. (1999: 52, figs 7,8); Malcolm & Malcolm (2000: 22; 2001: 64); Brodo et al. (2001: 280, pl. 281); Arvidsson & Nash (2002: 161, fig. 46).

Coccocarpia palmicola is a very variable species. The texture and colour of the upper surface appear to be modified by microhabitat and/or microclimate. Exposed muscicolous or terricolous collections are dark greyish or black with a thick, leathery, rather scabrid thallus while specimens from more protected subalpine or alpine sites are conspicuously blue-grey (especially at lobe margins), with a rather thin, delicate, friable thallus. Isidia may be sparse or dense, forming a ±areolate or dense crust, and may be simple or coralloid, even on the same thallus. The colour of rhizines varies continuously from dark bluish or black to pale, sometimes in one specimen. The colour of the apothecial disc may vary from pale-brown to dark reddish brown or blackish within the same apothecium. C. palmicola is distinguished from P. pellita by the morphology of the isidia.