Coccocarpia palmicola (Spreng.) Arv. & D.J.Galloway
Lecidea palmicola Sprengel, K. Vet.-Akad. nya Handl. 1: 46 (1820).
Coccocarpia cronia (Tuck.) Vainio, Annls Acad. Sci. fenn. ser. A, 6: 103 (1915).
Vischia coccocarpoides Dodge, Nova Hedwigia 19: 467 (1970).
Thallus ± orbicular to 8 cm diam. Lobes 0.2-0.6(-1.0) cm wide, adjacent to imbricate, broadly cuneate to flabellate, apices rotund. Upper surface rather variable in texture, smooth, matt or slightly shining to ± wrinkled, scabrid, isidiate, often also with transverse, concentric ridges. Isidia concolorous with thallus or darker, terete, nodular when young, becoming coralloid, sparse or forming a dense, ± areolate crust centrally. Rhizines dense, colour variable, pale to dark bluish-black (then often white-tipped), sometimes projecting beyond lobe margins. Apothecia adnate, to 0.4 cm diam., orbicular at first, becoming irregular with age, disc pale brown-red to black. Ascospores 9-11 × 3-5 µm.
N: Three Kings Is to Wellington (York Bay). S: Nelson (St Arnaud Ra.) to Southland (Longwood Ra.). St: (Mt Anglem). A: Widely distributed from s.l. to 2500 m, colonising a variety of substrates. An epiphyte of trees and shrubs in coastal broadleaf forests as well as from inland Nothofagus forests; also on clay banks, bryophyte cushions in subalpine grassland and on rocks in alpine fellfield.
Pantropical
C. palmicola is very variable, and closely related to C. pellita, but separated from it by the morphology of the isidia. The texture and colour of the upper surface are variable and appear to be modified by microhabitat and/or microclimate. Exposed muscicolous or terricolous collections are dark greyish or black with a thick, leathery, rather scabrid thallus while specimens from more protected subalpine or alpine sites are conspicuously blue-grey (particularly at lobe margins), with a rather thin, delicate, friable thallus. Isidia may be sparse or dense, forming a ± areolate or dense crust, and may be simple or coralloid, even on the same thallus. The colour of rhizines varies continuously from dark bluish or black to pale, sometimes in one specimen. The colour of the apothecial disc may vary from pale brown to dark reddish-brown or blackish within the same apothecium.
