Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Collema flaccidum var. β laeve (Hook.f. & Taylor) C. Bab. in J.D. Hooker, Fl. Nov. Zel. 2: 309 (1855).

≡Synechoblastus laevis (Hook.f. & Taylor) Müll.Arg., Flora 70: 283 (1887).

=Leptogium patoni Stirt., Trans. Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria 17: 75 (1881).

Lectotype: New Zealand. Northland, Bay of Islands, on trees, 1841, J.D. Hooker s.n. – FH [fide Degelius (1974: 116)]. Isolectotypes – BM, G.

Leptogium patoni. Holotype: New Zealand. Northland, Ohaewai, Bay of Islands, on trees, Hugh Paton in Herb. Stirton – GLAM [see Galloway (1999: 352].

Description : Flora (1985: 139).

N: Northland to Wellington. S: Westland, Canterbury, Otago, Southland. St: A: (Ranui Cove). Common from s.l. to subalpine habitats, mainly corticolous, rarely on rock; on bark often found in mixed bryophyte-lichen associations. Epiphytic on Avicennia, Coprosma, Cordyline, Leptospermum, Melicytus, Myoporum, Nothofagus, Podocarpus and others.

Australasian

Illustrations : Degelius (1974: 117, fig. 32; 119, fig. 33); Kantvilas & Jarman (1999: 59).

Collema laeve is characterised by: the mainly corticolous (rarely saxicolous) habit; the medium to large (3–10 cm diam.) thalli, broadly lobed, smooth and without isidia; densely crowded, immersed to sessile apothecia with pale- to dark-red discs that are white- or yellow-pruinose, and with thick, persistent, smooth to finely wrinkled thalline margins; and fusiform to broadly acicular, 5–7(–9)-septate ascospores, not constricted at septa, (25–)40–65 × (4.5–)6–8.5 μm.