Gonohymenia
Thallus crustose to pulvinate- or umbilicate-fruticose, ± gelatinous when wet, tough, leathery or ± rigid when dry, dark greyish- or greenish-black, matt, attached to substrate (usually saxicolous) by aggregates of medullary hyphae. Photobiont blue-green, Chroococcaceae. Apothecia lecanorine, immersed in thallus (thallinocarps) not readily seen without dissection. Hymenial algae present. Ascospores many per ascus, simple, colourless, thin walled.
Gonohymenia included in the family Lichinaceae [Henssen Ber. dtsch. bot. Ges. 92: 483-506 (1979)] contains c. 8 species of rather restricted distribution in Europe, North America, Greenland and the Middle East. It is not known with any certainty from the Southern Hemisphere. One species, possibly referable to this genus is known from wet rock faces and stream sides, exposed to spray, east of the Main Divide in South I (Rangitata Gorge, Lake Benmore), however material seen is sterile. It should be looked for more widely in these subalpine, rather dry, eastern localities.
