Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Thallus leprose, diffuse, without marginal lobes, of a mass of powdery, spherical granules to 0.2 mm diam., with projecting hyphae, usually forming a thick, powdery crust; bright whitish grey usually with a greenish to yellowish tinge. Medulla white. Hyphae of thallus 2–5 μm diam., anastomosing, non-septate, colourless, coated with small, colourless, irregular, granular crystals. Photobiont green, cells ±spherical to 20 μm diam.

Chemistry : Thallus K− or + yellow, C−, KC+ reddish orange (sometimes transient), Pd+ yellow slowly becoming orange, or + orange immediately; containing alectorialic, barbatolic, protocetraric, and psoromic acids in three chemodemes (Lohtander 1994: 227; Leuckert et al. 1995: 248; Leuckert et al. 2002).

S: Nelson (Lake Rotoroa). First collected from podocarp–hardwood–beech forest at 450 m in Nelson Lakes National Park by Volkmar Wirth, who records (1997: 12) "...The ecological conditions of the locailty in New Zealand are very close to those in central Europe" viz: moderately acidic substrata such as vertical and overhanging rock faces, walls, mosses, trees, wood and soil. Known also from Great Britain, Scandinavia, Europe and North America (Laundon 1992; Tønsberg 1992, 2004b; Lohtander 1994; Wirth & Heklau 1995; Kukwa 2002a; Nimis & Martellos 2003; Santesson et al. 2004).

Bipolar

Lepraria eburnea is characterised by: the leprose, powdery, whitish crust, often with a greenish or yellowish tinge; and the presence of alectorialic, barbatolic and protocetraric acids.