Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Sticta episticta Nyl., Flora 48: 299 (1865).

≡Lobaria episticta (Nyl.) Trevis., Lichenotheca Veneta exs. 75 (1869).

Holotype: New Zealand. Otago, on trees, top of Saddle Hill near Dunedin, 26.x.1861, W.L. Lindsay – H-NYL 33433. Isotype – E.

Descriptions : Flora (1985: 440). See also Galloway (1988a: 130–132).

Chemistry : 15α-acetoxy-22-hydroxyhopan-24-oic acid, 15α-22-dihydrocy-24-hopanoic acid.

N: Northland (Whangarei) to Cook Strait. S: Spasmodically from Nelson (N of Westport), Canterbury (Lewis Pass, Banks Peninsula, Mt Peel) and E Otago (Lamb Hill, Waikouaiti, Green Island, Saddle Hill, Flagstaff, Catlins), Southland (Longwood Ra.) [map in Galloway (1988a: 133, fig. 60)]. Mainly lowland and coastal in damp, humid habitats of moderate illumination close to forest margins, from tree trunks, coastal rocks and rocks in tussock grassland, s.l. to 800 m.

Endemic

Illustrations : Knight (1880: pl. XII, fig. 2 – as Sticta episticta); Galloway (1988a: 131, fig. 59); Malcolm & Galloway (1997: 106, 165).

Pseudocyphellaria episticta is characterised by: linear-elongate, deeply indented, rather ragged lobes with lacerate-crenate, crisped margins that are densely coralloid-isidiate; a pseudocyphellate upper surface the pseudocyphellae sometimes associated with marginal phyllidia; a white medulla; a green photobiont; apothecia with irregularly phyllidiate margins; a red-brown epithecium turning rose-pink and dissolving in K; and a chemistry of two hopane acids.