Flora of New Zealand Series

Holotype: New Zealand, Southland, Doubtful Sound, Mt Barber above Deep Cove, on boulders in brook in the subalpine scrub belt. G. Einar and Greta Du Rietz 2063: 1, 3.iii. 1927, BM!

Thallus placodioid, to 4 cm diam., rosette-shaped, very closely attached, not detachable from substrate without damage, saxicolous. Marginal lobes laterally contiguous for their entire length, frequently separated by deep, radiating fissures, lobe ends slightly enlarged, 0.25-0.5 mm broad, 3-4 mm long, centrally areolate-cracked with frequent, transverse fissures, areolae 0.5-0.9 mm diam., irregular, margins angular. Upper surface plane to ± uneven, matt, occasionally subscabrid at margins, pale blue-grey to pale grey. Apothecia frequent; ± central, 0.5-0.9 mm diam., innate at first, hemiangiocarpic, slowly emergent at maturity, at length sessile, rounded to ± ovate, discrete, rarely confluent, disc dull to bright red-brown, convex or plane, surface slightly roughened, margins to 0.1 mm wide, at first inflexed and elevated above disc, ± excluded at maturity, concolorous with thallus or rarely red-brown and pale grey. Ascospores simple with a very thin and ± median plasma bridge but without any true septum developed, shortly ellipsoid to subglobose (7.5-)8-10.5 × (5.5-)6.5-7.5 µm. Pycnidia frequent, 200 × 150 µm, rather irregular, inner surface convoluted, containing small, short-celled coniodiophores from which conidia are produced mainly terminally, conidia rod-shaped, 5 × 2 µm.

S: Southland, Fiordland, (Doubtful Sound); known only from the type collection.

Endemic