Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Thallus corticolous, thin, ochraceous, bronze or brownish or somewhat olivaceous, in irregular patches (1–3.5 cm diam.) delimited by an undulating black, prothalline line. Apothecia lirelline, scattered, to crowded, black, carbonised, linear, simple to furcate, 0.5–2(–3) mm long, 0.2–0.6 mm wide, elevated, disc open, slit-like. Hymenium colourless to 100 μm tall. Hypothecium thin, pale-brownish. Asci oblong–clavate, short-stalked, 60–75 × 20–25 μm. Ascospores colourless at first becoming dark-brown at maturity, 7–9-septate, 30–40(–45) × (–5) 7–9 μm.

Chemistry : TLC−, all reactions negative.

N: Northland (Chicken Is). On bark in Vitex lucens, Dysoxylum spectabile, Metrosideros excelsa forest. First record for New Zealand in Hayward & Hayward (1984: 43). Known also from the United States, Cuba, Central and South America, New Caledonia, and Australia (Nylander 1868; Hue 1890; Redinger 1940; Awasthi, 1991; Esslinger & Egan 1995; Elix & McCarthy 1998; McCarthy 2003c, 2006). Redinger (1940: 28–30) distinguished three varieties and two forms within the variation of the species.

Pantropical

Illustrations : Fée (1825: tab. V, fig. 4); Massalongo (1853: 109, fig. 142 – as Graphis bonplandiae).

Opegrapha bonplandi is characterised by: the corticolous habit; the ochraceous, olivaceous to brownish thallus, delimited by a black-prothalline line; scattered, small, black lirellae; and 7–9-septate ascospores, dark-brown at maturity, 30–40(–45) × (5–)7–9 μm.