Xanthoparmelia verdonii
Description : Thallus adnate on rock, 5–7 cm diam. Lobes imbricate or not, plane, sublinear-elongate to subirregular, irregularly branched, 1–3 mm wide. Upper surface yellow-green darkening to ±blackened centrally, glossy, emaculate, coriaceous, conspicuously wrinkled and irregularly cracked centrally, isidiate, without soredia, lobe margins blackened. Isidia warty to subglobose, sometimes becoming gnarled or branched, apices epicorticate, inflated, some becoming erumpent-pustulate. Lower surface glossy, black or brown-black in parts, rhizinate. Rhizines moderately dense, simple, black. Apothecia and pycnidia unknown.
Chemistry : Cortex K−; medulla K−, C−, KC+ pink, Pd−; containing norlobaridone, loxodin and usnic acid.
S: Westland (Okarito Beach), Canterbury (Lowry Peaks Ra.), Otago (N bank Taieri River). On coastal rocks and also on dead wood inland. Known also from moist rocks in forests of southern Australia and Tasmania (Elix 1994s: 300; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).
Australasian
Illustrations : Elix et al. (1986b: 347, fig. 37); Hale (1990: 222, fig. 73A).
Xanthoparmelia verdonii is characterised by: the saxicolous/lignicolous habit; a coriaceous thallus with broad lobes; a black lower surface; warty, erumpent isidia; and norlobaridone and loxodin in the medulla.
