Flora of New Zealand Series

Verrucaria punctata Hoffm., Dtsch. Fl.: 122 (1796).

Thallus thin and continuous, often becoming cracked or restricted to a few minute lumps and warts, often lacking, pale silvery grey to dark grey or olivaceous, determinate or partly indeterminate, rarely with a delimiting black, marginal prothallus, corticolous or lignicolous. Apothecia small, 0.05-0.25 mm diam., black or brown-black, matt, marginate and sessile becoming convex and immarginate. Epithecium dark brown. Hypothecium pale to dark brown. Ascospores ellipsoid 17-20.5(-22.1) × 7-8.3 µm.

N: Auckland (Rangitoto I.) On coastal trees and shrubs, Metrosideros tomentosa and Senecio kirkii (Zahlbruckner loc. cit. p. 372). A specimen on decorticated wood collected by Colenso (No.6259) is in BM.

Cosmopolitan