Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Opegrapha melanophthalma Müll.Arg., Flora 66: 348 (1883).

Description : Thallus foliicolous, rounded to irregularly spreading, 2–10 mm diam., verrucose, greenish grey to pale brownish grey, smooth and slightly glossy between verrucae. Verrucae convex, numerous, scattered, 0.05–0.1 mm diam, pale greenish grey to brownish or yellowish brown. Apothecia prominent, immersed, 0.3–0.7 mm diam., disc 0.2–0.4 mm diam., plane, black to dark-grey, slightly glossy, epruinose; margins 0.1–0.2 mm wide, gently sloping outwards, concolorous with thallus or paler, innermost zone sometimes white. Epithecium colourless, to 10 μm thick. Hymenium colourless, 50–60 μm tall. Hypothecium colourless to brownish. Paraphysoids branched and anastomosing c. 1 μm thick. Asci clavate, 40–54 × 8–12 μm. Ascospores 3-septate, fusiform, microcephalic, one of the median cells distinctly larger than the others, apices acute or obtuse, not constricted at septa, 15–22 × 3–5 μm. Pycnidia immersed, 0.15–0.25 mm diam. Conidia of two types found in same pycnidium, or in separate pycnidia of the same type. Macroconidia simple, cylindrical, with rounded apices, 5–8 × 2–3 μm. Microconidia simple, ellipsoidal to fusiform, 2–3 × 1 μm.

N: Auckland (Waitakere Ra.). On Astelia leaves (Bartlett 1988: 15). Widely distributed in all tropical regions (Santesson 1952; Kalb & Vězda 1988a; Santesson & Tibell 1988; Lücking 1992, 1996a; Farkas & Sipman 1997; Lücking & Kalb 2001; Wolseley et al. 2002; McCarthy 2003c, 2006; Farkas 2004).

Pantropical

Illustrations : Santesson (1952: 118, fig. 12); Lücking (1992: 35, fig. 7B; 37, fig. 8B; 1996a: 126, fig. 9A); Malcolm & Malcolm (2000: 112; 2001: 32, 50).

Mazosia melanophthalma is characterised by: the foliicolous habit; the verrucose thallus, the verrucae 0.05–0.1 mm diam., and uniform in colour from margins to centre; and 3-septate ascospores, 15–22 × 3–5 μm.