Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Flora (1985: 568).

Chemistry : Chemosyndrome A+5; containing in addition to the anthraquinones parietin (major), emodin, parietinic acid, fallacinal, teloschistin and erythroglaucin, also large amounts of the unidentified compound Tel 50 (Søchting & Frödén 2002).

N: Northland (Poor Knights Is), South Auckland (Rotorua, Waiotapu Valley), Wellington (Raetihi, Lower Hutt). S: Nelson (Cobb Dam, Lake Rotoroa, Lake Rotoiti, Motupiko), Westland (Greymouth), Marlborough (Mt Stokes, d'Urville I., Kenepuru Sound, Mt Stokes, upper Wairau Valley), Canterbury (Cheviot, Arthur's Pass, Hawdon River, Cass, Castle Hill, Lowry Peaks Ra., Waipara, Cashmere Hills Christchurch, Rocky Peak Banks Peninsula, Alford Forest, Lake Tekapo, Godley River, Geraldine, White Horse Hill Mt Cook, Temple River Lake Ohau), Otago (Nevis Valley, Cromwell, Pisa Ra., Old Man Ra., Alexandra, Poolburn Reservoir, Rock & Pillar Ra., Abbots Hill Dunedin, Maungatua, Tuapeka West, Blue Mts), Southland (Waihopai Scenic Reserve Invercargill,Tiwai Point, Waituna Lagoon, Borland Lodge). St: (Oban, Table Hill). Widespread, on living bark of both introduced and native trees and shrubs, often on dust-impregnated branches, on dead twigs and decorticated wood, rocks, gravestones, concrete posts, and occasionally on old iron railings and gates, in drier eastern parts of the South Island; from s.l. (occasional on maritime rocks) to 1000 m. It is particularly common on wayside trees, hedges, gates and old fenceposts in rural areas, and on planted trees in parks and gardens in urban habitats where it is an early coloniser, sometimes forming extensive swards of young thalli. It appears to be able to withstand moderate levels of atmospheric pollution in both urban and industrial areas. Rarely it is encountered in subalpine sites above treeline. It is known from a wide variety of introduced shrubs and trees, as well as from Coprosma propinqua, Dacrycarpus dacrydioides, Discaria toumatou, Hebe sp., Kunzea ericoides, Leptospermum scoparium, Melicytus alpinus, Muehlenbeckia complexa and Nothofagus solandri var. cliffortioides. Also known from Australia where it is recorded from New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania (Filson 1996; McCarthy 2003c, 2006) and from southern Chile (Almborn 1992; Galloway & Quilhot 1999).

Austral

Illustrations : Filson (1969: 105, pl. 10); Martin & Child (1972: 122, pl. 34); Filson & Rogers (1979: pl. 15C); Kärnefelt 1989: 189, fig. 106); Almborn (1992: 363, fig. 3).

Exsiccati : Weber (1969: No. 235).

Teloschistes velifer is characterised by: the corticolous, lignicolous, saxicolous habit; small, rather narrow dorsiventral lobes that are ±horizontal-spreading at first with scattered cilia on the upper surface, but which soon become ascending and ±erect-subfruticose, which become expanded into hooded, sail-like structures at their apices that usually lack cilia. Lobes are corticate on both upper and lower surfaces, except at the expanded apices, which are decorticate on the lower surface and there develop copious green-yellow soredia. Teloschistes velifer varies considerably in thallus size throughout its range, specimens from urban habitats with moderate to high levels of pollution being small, and eroding into swards of soredia. The presence of even poorly developed apical sail-like or hooded structures with ventral development of soredia is always characteristic of the species. Juvenile thalli are similar in gross morphology to thalli of T. spinosus but lack the marginal soredia of that species; in T. velifer soredia always develop on the ventral surface in well-defined, decorticate areas which are characteristically deeply excavate, forming a conspicuous swelling on the dorsal surface. Juvenile specimens might be mistaken for T. sieberianus (q.v.), but this species usually has hyaline tips to the cilia, larger pycnidia, and is without soredia. Thallus colour varies from pale to dark yellow to orange-yellow to orange-red, depending on the light regime of the habitat. Apothecia and pycnidia are rare and conidia are bifusiform.