Flora of New Zealand Series

Type: Herteliana gagei (Sm.) J.R.Laundon [=Lichen gagei Sm.]. See Laundon (2005: 492).

Description : Thallus crustose, superficial, pale, with or without a marginal prothallus. Photobiont green, chlorococcoid, cells globose, 8–11 μm diam. Ascomata apothecia, immersed to sessile, disc red-brown, plane to convex. Thalline exciple absent. Proper exciple persistent, pseudoparenchymatous, pale-brown to orange. Epithecium orange-brown, granular. Hymenium hyaline to pale-orange, I+ blue. Hamathecium of paraphyses, simple or sparsely branched, apices swollen. Hypothecium well-developed, root-like, colourless to yellow-orange. Asci elongate–clavate, 8-spored, with a thickened, I+blue tholus with a paler-staining ocular chamber, Bacidia -type. Ascospores broadly fusiform, pointed at apices, simple, colourless, without a perispore. Conidiomata pycnidia, immersed, black. Conidia thread-like, falcate, simple, colourless, arising singly from apices of conidiogenous cells.

Herteliana, a genus of three known species is included in the family Ramalinaceae (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Eriksson 2005). Originally considered to be monospecific (Hawksworth 1992a), a second species was later added to it (Ekman 1996a) with a third species from Campbell I. just recently described (Fryday 2004a). It is characterised by a distinctive root-like hypothecium extending into the medullary tissue and simple to 3-septate ascospores. It is distinguished from Bacidia and Bacidina by the nature of the hypothecium.