Flora of New Zealand Series

Holotype: New Zealand. Nelson, Stockton Plateau, north of Westport, sandstone pavement, 900 m, 23.iii.1985, A. Henssen 30476b & H.T. Lumbsch – MB. Isotypes – BM, CHR 451563, HO.

Description : Thallus squamulose to subfoliose, spreading in patches 5–10 cm diam., terricolous. Lobes 4–12(–15) mm diam., dispersed to contiguous and imbricate, flat, peltate and ±convex, or shell-like with raised margins, attached by a central holdfast and additional tufts of rhizohyphae. Upper surface olive-brown to blackened, dull or glossy, smooth, undulate to unevenly wrinkled, becoming fissured with age. Lower surface brownish, naked or occasionally indistinctly veined. Apothecia marginal, shortly stalked, black, dull or glossy, up to 5 mm diam., globose at first, becoming convoluted and glomerulate with age. Hymenium 50–80 μm tall with a grey-black to blackish brown epithecium. Subhymenium dark-brown in upper part, 450–480 μm tall when young, to 1600–2000 μm and deeply divided in stalks when mature; boundary tissue ranging from 45 to 160 μm thick. Ascospores fusiform, (9–)11–16 × 3– 4.5 μm. Pycnidia marginal, black, ±globose to 0.5 mm diam. Conidia filiform, curved, 32–62 × 0.6 μm.

Chemistry : TLC−, all reactions negative.

S: Nelson (near Fenella Hut Cobb Valley, Denniston & Stockton Plateaux, Mt Rochfort, Mt Augusta), Southland (West Dome). In open, exposed often inundated quartzite sand or peaty soils, 750–900 m, associating with species of Cladia and Cladonia, Neophyllis melacarpa, Pycnothelia caliginosa and species of Siphula (S. decumbens, S. foliacea, S. fragilis, S. jamesii). A prominent element in the vegetation on these exposed, windswept tablelands, offering considerable resistance to surface soil erosion. Known also from similar habitats in Tasmania (Henssen et al. 1992; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).

Australasian

Exsiccati : Vězda (1997d: No. 291).

Illustrations : Henssen et al. (1992: 459, figs 3, 5, 6; 460, figs 7–9; 461 figs 10–18; 462, figs 19–25; 464, figs 26–32; 465, figs 33–38; 466, fig. 39); Malcolm & Galloway (1997: 138); Wedin & Döring (1999: 1132, fig. 2); Malcolm & Malcolm (2000: 131); Döring & Wedin (2000b: 365, fig. 2G).

Austropeltum glareosum is characterised by: the conspicuous olive-brown, rather leathery, squamulose thallus bearing marginal, lecideine, black, ±glomerulate apothecia. Characteristic anatomical features include the thick, heavily gelatinised and gradually decaying upper cortex; the pseudopodetiate apothecia with a boundary tissue and secondarily divided hymenium and subhymenium; and pycnidia with a thalline cortex that breaks up into a channel when the filiform conidia are released.