Flora of New Zealand Series

Thallus ± fruticose and erect, rhizines when present confined to the central part of the lower surface, dying away at base, terricolous or muscicolous. Lobes flattened, rarely terete, weakly branching. Upper surface olive-green or brownish or reddish-brown or yellow, with laminal or marginal pseudocyphellae and often marginal projections. Photobiont green, Trebouxia. Medulla white. Apothecia lecanorine, marginal or submarginal. Ascospores colourless, simple, ellipsoid, 6-8 per ascus.

Cetraria is a genus of c. 40 species of cosmopolitan lichens primarily arctic in distribution but with some bipolar outliers in the Southern Hemisphere. Two species are known from New Zealand from tundra vegetation in the mountains east of the Main Divide in South I. The monograph of Kärnefelt [ Opera Bot. 46: 1-150 (1979)] gives the most complete modern treatment of the brown species of Cetraria, in which the New Zealand taxa are included.*

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* Cetraria chlorophylla (Willd.) Vainio, is also known from New Zealand. Collected from Hihitahi State Forest (on Dacrydium cupressinum) by J.K. Bartlett.