Flora of New Zealand Series

Pilophoron cariosum Hue, Nouv. Archs Mus. Hist. nat. Paris sér. 3, 10: 280 (1898).

Holotype [fide Jahns (1981), p. 326]: Australia. Victoria. Supra truncos arboris emortuum muscosum in Black Spur. F.R.M. Wilson 70, BM!

Pilophoron cariosum. Type: New Zealand. Sine loco. Ad ligna vetusta. W.T.L. Travers, PC-HUE!

Primary thallus, granular-crustose, bright emerald-green when wet, spreading over bryophytes and decaying wood. Pseudopodetia terete, hollow, often fissured, 2-8(-10) mm tall, irregularly branched in upper parts. Algal layer not homogeneous, separated in loose granules. Internal chrondroid layer visible as thick, cartilaginous strands, often loosely netted. Apothecia terminal, swollen, conglomerate, rarely simple, disc brown, black, matt or shining, strongly globose, convoluted, immarginate, to 5 mm diam. Ascospores ellipsoid-fusiform, 8-10 × 1-3 µm. Pycnidia brown, bottle-shaped, apical on tips of short, lateral or sterile branches. Conidia not seen. Chemistry: An unidentified fatty acid.

N: North Auckland to Wellington. S: Nelson (Lake Rotoiti) to Southland (Longwood Ra.). St: Throughout, in shaded, undisturbed humid, forest habitats; especially common in Nothofagus forests close to the main Divide in South I.

Australasian

J.M. Crombie noted on the type specimen "...Pilophoron comglomeratum. Certainly not referable to Pilophoron. It is an erythrocarpous Cladonia with denigrate apothecia..."

In the most recent account of Pilophorus, Jahns (1981 loc. cit., p. 328) recommends that P. conglomeratus be excluded from the genus on account of the absence of cephalodia and the brown pigment of the apothecia. However, until a new genus is described for this species and for an undescribed terricolous species from quartzite-sand on the Denniston Plateau (Nelson), it is here maintained in Pilophorus.