Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Lichen miniatus var. complicatum Lightf., Fl. scot. 2 : 858 (1777).

Description : Flora (1985: 156 – as Dermatocarpon weberi).

N: Sine loco (Colenso). S: Nelson (Mt Cobb), Canterbury (Upper Godley Valley, Rangitata Gorge), Otago (Central Otago mountains, Poolburn Dam, Kakanui Mts). St: (Deceit Peaks). On rocks near rivers or watercourses, often in drainage joints or channels on sloping rocks periodically inundated with water, mainly subalpine, 350–1580 m. Widely distributed in temperate to arctic habitats in the Northern Hemisphere. Not known from Australia (Filson 1996).

Cosmopolitan

Illustrations : Ozenda & Clauzade (1970: 181, fig. 125); Heiðmarsson (2001: 607: fig. 1E; 611, fig. 3A; 627, fig. 20).

Dermatocarpon miniatum var. complicatum is characterised by: the saxicolous habit; the thick, coriaceous, umbilicate, often caespitose–congested thallus (bright-green when wet, greyish brown when dry); and a negative reaction of the medulla to Melzer's Iodine reagent. Recorded in earlier accounts of New Zealand lichens as Endocarpon fluviatile and Dermatocarpon fluviatile (Babington 1855: 306; Hooker 1867: 592; Nylander 1888: 228; Müller Argoviensis 1894: 87; Hellbom 1896: 131) and as Dermatocarpon weberi (Galloway 1985a: 156).