Lauderlindsaya J.C.David & D.Hawksw.
Type : * Lauderlindsaya borreri (Tul.) J.C.David & D.Hawksw. [* Sphaeria borreri Tul.]
Description : Lichenicolous or algicolous ascomycete belonging to Verrucariales. Ascomata perithecia, subglobose or conical–globose, black, pseudoparenchymatous, with an apical punctiform ostiole. Paraphyses not seen; periphyses well-developed, branched or unbranched. Centrum I+ red-brown. Asci clavate to broadly clavate, thin-walled, thickened at apices, 8-spored. Ascospores ellipsoidal–fusiform, 3–5-septate at first, 7-septate at maturity to submuriform, constricted at septa, colourless to pale-brown, smooth-walled.
Lauderlindsaya was introduced by David & Hawksworth (1989) for a lichenicolous fungus previously known as * Sphaerulina chlorococca (Leight.) R.Sant., growing on the sterile lichen Normandina pulchella, and mistaken by some lichenologists as perithecia belonging to Normandina. Infections of Lauderlindsaya are apparent as moderately large, immersed perithecia visible as blackish dots on the otherwise green surface of the host lichen (×10 lens). Ascospores are elongate, multiseptate to submuriform, and colourless. It is included in the family Verrucariaceae (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Eriksson 2005). Three species are known (Diederich & Sérusiaux 1993), of which one is recorded from New Zealand. The generic name commemorates the Scottish lichenologist William Lauder Lindsay (1829–1880) a pioneer observer of lichenicolous fungi (Hawksworth 2003), who visited Otago, New Zealand, between October 1861 and February 1862.
