Flora of New Zealand Series

Thysanothecium buchananii Knight, T.N.Z.I. 13: 386 (1881).

Lectotype: New Zealand. Otago. "....supra molem nivium frigaribus conglaciatum in summis montibus Mt. Aspiring Range". J. Buchanan, H-NYL 3077!

Thallus lobulate-squamulose, very closely attached to substrate, concrescent, spreading in irregular humped patches, to 8 cm diam., without a prothallus. Squamules tumid or ascending, crowded, 1-3(-4) mm diam., coalescing, densely imbricate, rounded, humped or lobulate, surface smooth, coriaceous or waxy, ± glossy, occasionally paler and minutely pubescent at margins, sometimes striate-cracked, pale greenish-buff in shaded situations (among tussock), yellow-brown, cinnamon to dark red-brown or chestnut-brown or grey-black in exposed sites on soils or scree. Cephalodia rather rare, grey-brown or grey-black, wrinkled, convolute to congested-squamulose, at base of squamules, rather smaller than squamules. Lower surface greenish-white to pale buff or brownish, with a faint pale pubescence. Apothecia 1-10 mm diam., sessile, ± immersed in squamule crust to ± subpedicellate, round to irregular, scattered to densely packed, congested, disc matt, red-brown, shallowly to deeply convex to subundulate, not pruinose, gyrose-etched or fissured, margins thick, conspicuous, crenate-striate, thalline exciple verrucose-areolate, ± pale and often minutely pubescent. Ascospores variable, ± spherical to ellipsoid, 15 µm diam., to 15-22 × 10-15 µm.

S: Nelson (Above Lewis Pass) to Otago (Central Otago mountains). A characteristic scree, and fellfield species growing on soil or amongst mosses in alpine and subalpine habitats mostly east of the Main Divide between 800 and 3000 m.

Endemic

It is likely that the Aspiring Range referred to by Knight and Buchanan is Mt Alta on the true left bank of the Matukituki River, well down the valley and not Mt Aspiring itself. Although Buchanan first visited the Matukituki Valley with James Hector in 1862, the bulk of his botanical collections from this locality were made on Mt. Alta in company with James Park and Alexander Mackay in 1881.