Flora of New Zealand Series

Thallus crustose, ± areolate, brown-blackish or greyish, upper cortex paraplectenchymatous, sorediate or not, without cephalodia, saxicolous, terricolous or muscicolous. Photobiont green, Trebouxia. Apothecia lecanorine, innate, ± concave at first becoming plane, thalline margin not evident in older fruits. Ascospores colourless, ellipsoid, simple or spuriously 1-septate, 8 per ascus.

Aspicilia, included in the family Lecanoraceae, is related to Lecanora but distinguished from it by the immersed fruits [see Magnusson K. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Handl. ser. 3, 17(5): 1-182 (1939)]. Three species are known in New Zealand, all from subalpine or alpine habitats in South I., with A. subsorediza being one of the lichens known from the highest altitude in New Zealand, occurring on the summit rocks of Mt Cook. The genus is still poorly collected here and much in need of study.