Flora of New Zealand Series

≡*Pharcidia peltideae Vain., Termeszetr. Füz. 22: 342 (1899).

Description : Lichenicolous. Pseudothecia immersed in surface layers of host; scattered, black, subglobose with a flattened base, ostiolate, 40–70 μm wide and 45–60 μm tall; pseudothecial wall pseudoparenchymatous, mainly 10–15 μm thick, of 3–4 layers of ellipsoidal compressed cells, 4–7 μm diam., cells in upper half of pseudothecial wall dark-brown to black with heavily thickened walls; cells in lower half of the pseudothecial wall brown to pale-brown to subhyaline with somewhat thinner walls. Pseudoparaphyses arising from lower parts of pseudothecial wall and base of cavity, becoming gelatinised and indistinct in mature ascomata. Asci elongate-clavate, bitunicate, thick-walled with a distinct internal apical beak, 28–35 × 7–8 μm. Ascospores biseriate in ascus, ellipsoidal with rounded ends, 1-septate, not markedly constricted at septum, colourless, 9–12 × 2.5–3.5(–4.5) μm.

N: Wellington [collected by T.S. Ralph and distributed in Ralph's New Zealand Plants. No. 18 – BM; and by Charles Knight, distributed in Hugo Ljoka's exsiccatum, Lichenotheca Universalis, Fasc. 3, No. 119 (1886)]. Probably more widely distributed in New Zealand. Known also from Great Britain, Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, and widely distributed in the Arctic (Zhurbenko & Santesson 1996; Alstrup 2004; Santesson et al. 2004).

Cosmopolitan

Hosts : Pseudocyphellaria coriacea, P. rufovirescens (Kondratyuk & Galloway 1994: 28). Elsewhere on species of Peltigera (especially P. canina) and Solorina (Santesson 1960; Hawksworth 1975; Roux & Triebel 1994).

Illustrations : Hawksworth (1975: 200, fig. 12; 1986b: 509, fig. 7 – as Stigmidium solorinarium); Roux & Triebel (1994: 502, figs 41–43).

* Stigmidium peltideae is characterised by: the lichenicolous habit (on species of Pseudocyphellaria); the immersed pseudothecia; and 1-septate, colourless ascospores, 9–12 × 2.5–3.5 (–4.5) μm.