Flora of New Zealand Series

Holotype: New Zealand. South I. Nelson, Denniston Plateau north of Westport, among quartzite sand on sandstone pavement, c. 750 m, 21.ix.1981, D.J. Galloway s.n. – CHR 381055. Isotype – BM.

Description : Primary thallus granular, appearing subsquamulose, granules convex at first, 0.1–0.5 mm diam., occasionally discrete, normally continuous, forming flattened or convex, concrescent, irregular patches 2–20 cm diam., often appearing somewhat areolate or spreading ± uniformly over soil, sometimes on a thin to thick, fibrous, black prothallus, granules grey-white, sometimes blackened in parts, surface smooth to roughened. Podetia occasional to frequent, erect or decumbent, hollow, terete or somewhat flattened, simple, finger-like to branched, proliferating towards apices, 0.5–1.5(–2) cm tall, 103 mm diam., thinly or thickly covered with thalline granules from base to apex, or decorticate in patches or completely decorticate and exposing brown-black cartilaginous medullary strands; sometimes longitudinally fissured or fistulose. Apothecia black, convex, spherical to ±conglomerate, shining, immarginate, solitary or clustered, 0.5–1.5(–2) mm diam. Ascospores 10–5–12 × 2–5–4(–4.5) μm. Pycnidia at apices of short stalks or on lateral branches of podetia, or on thalline granules, short (0.5 mm or less), variable, cylindrical or tapering, solitary to densely clustered. Conidia falciform, 4–5 –5 × 0.5 μm.

Chemistry : Cortex K+ yellow; containing atranorin and chloroatranorin plus three unidentified compounds including two aliphatic acids.

S: Nelson (Cobb Valley, Tasman Mts, Denniston Plateau). On peaty soils and on quartzite sand in exposed grassland where considerable areas of bare soil are present, sometimes inundated. It occurs with the following lichens: Austropeltum glareosum, Cladia aggregata, Cladonia murrayi, C. southlandica, C. subsubulata, Siphula complanata, S. decumbens, S. elixii, S. foliacea, S. fragilis and S. jamesii (Galloway & James 1987; Kantvilas 1996b; McCarthy 2003c, 2006). First collected from the Denniston Plateau by D.J.Galloway & J.A. Elix in February 1980 and later recorded for the first time in Tasmania by G. Kantvilas in 1982. It is one of several taxa that have a rather restricted distribution in Nelson and SW Tasmania.

Australasian

Exsiccati : Vězda (1997a: No. 267).

Illustrations : Galloway & James (1987: 574, fig. 9); Malcolm & Galloway (1997: 113); Malcolm & Malcolm (2000: 127).

Pycnothelia caliginosa is characterised by: the terricolous habit; the grey-white, granular to subsquamulose thallus developed on a thick, fibrous, black prothallus; erect or decumbent, hollow, terete to somewhat flattened podetia, terminated by black, convex, spherical to conglomerate apothecia.