Siphula georginae
Description : Thallus forming mats or tufts over peaty soil, gravel or stones. Lobes very variable 10–30 mm tall, typically flattened, to 3–5 mm wide and 0.15–0.25 mm thick, but sometimes rather nodulose and subterete, mainly in upper parts (0.3–0.4 mm thick), erect, ascending or decumbent, loosely dispersed or straggling to very tightly crowded-congested, often in pulvinate clumps, simple, irregularly lobed or distinctly branched with up to 3 somewhat irregular dichotomies. Margins and apices rounded, to minutely crenulate, nodulose in terete lobes, easily fractured. unthickened to very slightly thickened in broad-lobed specimens. Surface smooth to scabrid (×10 lens) especially at apices, sometimes transversely cracked, occasionally wrinkled at base, pale beige-brown to pale cream-grey or olive-grey, rather yellowish when wet. Rhizomorphs concolorous with thallus to pale-brown, terete, fragile, entangled. 0.5–1 mm diam., at point of attachment to lobes.
Chemistry : Cortex K+ yellowish, C−, KC−, Pd−, UV−; medulla K+ yellowish, C+ green, KC−, Pd−, UV−; containing porphyrilic acid.
S: Canterbury (Arthur's Pass). On damp soil in alpine grassland. Known also from Tasmania (Kantvilas 1996c, 2002a; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).
Australasian
Illustration : Kantvilas (1996c: 13, fig. 3).
Siphula georginae is similar to S. complanata from which it differs chemically (having porphyrilic acid alone) and morphologically by its generally shorter, broader and more rounded lobes and by its paler, grey colour. Lobes also tend to be plane and mostly of even width along their length, or taper evenly, in contrast to the rather twisted and irregularly constricted lobes of S. complanata. The current name for this taxon is Parasiphula georginae (Kantvilas) Kantvilas & Grube ube & Kantvilas 2006: 246).
