Lepraria neglecta
≡Lecidea neglecta Nyl., Notis. Sällsk. Faun. Fl. fenn. Förh. 4: 233 (1859).
Description : Thallus granular, delimited, of a mass of convex granules, 0.1–0.2 mm diam., often paler in colour and clustered towards margins, without lobes, but often growing in neat or irregular rosettes, usually without projecting hyphae; pale-grey, white, to dark-grey or ±blackened. Medulla greyish white, rarely exposed. Hyphae of thallus 2–5 μm diam., forming a crowded, anastomosing network, obscurely septate, colourless, obscured in places by numerous, small, colourless, irregular, granular crystals. Photobiont green, cells ±spherical, to 17 μm diam.
Chemistry : Thallus K− or + yellow, C− or + reddish orange, KC+ reddish orange, Pd+ lemon-yellow; containing alectorialic acid, rarely with angardianic acid or rangiformic acid (Kümmerling et al. 1993b: 150–152; Leuckert et al. 1995: 252).
S: Nelson to Otago (Mt Brewster, Poolburn Reservoir, Rough Ridge, Pisa Ra., Dunstan Mts, Old Man Ra., Remarkables, Rock & Pillar Ra., Blue Mts, Flagstaff), Southland (Fiordland). St: (Mt Anglem). Mainly among mosses or on soil in rock crevices in exposed, high-alpine habitats, mainly E of the Main Divide. Often one of the most conspicuous lichens in late snowbank communities. Associating with and sometimes superficially confused with Frutidella caesioatra (q.v.). A common component of fellfield vegetation on the mountain ranges of Canterbury and Central Otago, 1500 –3000 m. An arctic–alpine lichen in the Northern Hemisphere, growing in exposed, sunny sites; known from Great Britain, Scandinavia, Greenland, northern and central Europe, and from North America, Bazil, Australia, Marion I, and Antarctica (Laundon 1992: 327; Kümmerling et al. 1993b: 152–153; Hansen 1995; Filson 1996; Øvstedal & Gremmen 2001; Øvstedal & Lewis Smith 2001; Brodo et al. 2001; Aptroot 2002e; McCarthy 2003c, 2006; Nimis & Martellos 2003; Santesson et al. 2004; Tønsberg 2004b).
Bipolar
Illustrations : Wirth (1987: 263); Dobson (1992: 186; 2000: 212); Brodo et al. (2001: 397, pl. 446).
Lepraria neglecta is characterised by: the muscicolous/terricolous habit; a granular, non-powdery, thallus, growing in neat rosettes, often on alpine to high-alpine mosses; and the presence of alectorialic acid (KC+ reddish orange, Pd+ lemon-yellow). In the Northern Hemisphere it is parasitised by the lichenicolous fungi * Llimoniella neglecta (Vain.) Triebel & Rambold * Merismatium heterophractum (Nyl.) Vouaux (Kümmerling et al. 1993b: 154–159).
