Flora of New Zealand Series

Thallus fruticose, tufted, erect or ± pendulous and straggling, to 15 cm long, saxicolous, attached by a basal holdfast. Branches terete, radial in structure, consisting of a central chondroid axis, medulla and cortex, ± branched, with or without lateral fibrils. Surface yellow or greenish-yellow, ± variegated with black or purplish-black. Medulla lax and arachnoid or compact, K+ or -. Chondroid axis 073 to 064 diam. of branch in thickness, hard, opaque or corneous, cylindrical or slightly irregular. Isidia absent. Soredia present or absent, when present in rounded or irregular soralia, concave-eroded to convex-pulvinate, pulverulent to compacted or granular, yellow to blackish. Apothecia when present geniculate, lateral on branches, lecanorine, with or without ray-like branchlets, thalline exciple smooth or warted or wrinkled, concolorous with thallus, disc black or bluish-black, matt or slightly shining, never pruinose. Ascospores 8 per ascus, simple, ellipsoid to subglobose, colourless, 3-5 × 5-8(-10) µm.

Neuropogon is a bipolar genus, with all but one of its 15 species confined to Antarctic or Subantarctic regions [Lamb J. Linn. Soc. Lond. Bot. 52: 199-237 (1939); Lilloa 14: 139-168 (1948); Scient. Rep. Br. Antarct. Surv. 38: 1-34 (1964)]. Five species are recorded from New Zealand, all from alpine environments. The genus is best developed in the mountains east of the Main Divide in South I., from Nelson to Otago. It is rare in North I., mountains and on Stewart I. A monograph of the genus (by F.J. Walker) is in preparation.