Flora of New Zealand Series

Lectotype: New Zealand. Sine loco, C. Knight – W [fide Galloway (1997: 162)].

Description : Thallus 2–8(–10) cm diam., ±loosely attached, here and there, with small attaching fascicles of rhizines, margins and apices free, straggling in irregular patches, among bryophytes or overgrowing crustose lichens. Lobes rather narrow, 2–3(–5) mm wide, 0.5–2.5 cm long, subdichotomously branching to irregularly laciniate, discrete at margins, overlapping-complex centrally. Margins entire, slightly thickened above and below, sinuses smoothly rounded, without isidia or soredia, occasionally secondarily minutely lobulate, here and there with a thin fringe of projecting, pale tomentum from the lower surface visible. Upper surface olive-green when moist, pale-buff or yellow-brown to grey-fawn when dry, matt, minutely papillate (×10 lens), irregularly wrinkled in parts, elsewhere undulate or smooth, rather thin, brittle when dry, pliable when moist, without isidia, maculae, phyllidia, pseudocyphellae or soredia. Photobiont green. Medulla white (K−). Lower surface uniformly pale-buff or tan, not darkening centrally, smooth or shallowly undulate, not conspicuously wrinkled, evenly tomentose from margins to centre, or occasionally with narrow glabrous patches at margins, tomentum thin, even, velvety, pale-buff or tan, here and there projecting at margins as a pale fringe. Cyphellae widely spaced, infrequent, pinprick-like at margins, elsewhere shallowly to deeply crateriform, 0.1–0.2(rarely to 0.4) mm diam., round to somewhat irregular, margins thin, raised, projecting only slightly from tomentum, pit membrane smooth, creamish to pale-buff. Apothecia and pycnidia not seen.

N: Northland (Great Mercury I., Little Barrier I.). On bark of Knightia excelsa and Kunzea ericoides in northern coastal forest, s.l. to 100 m. Still very poorly known and collected in New Zealand.

Endemic

Sticta livida is characterised by: the corticolous habit; a white medulla (K−); a green photobiont; rather narrow, subdichotomously branching lobes with entire margins, and prominent, smoothly rounded sinuses, and here and there with small, projecting secondary lobules. The lower surface is pale-buff and evenly short-tomentose with occasional scattered pinprike-like to crateriform cyphellae. It is superficially similar to the Australian species S. camarae Müll.Arg. (Galloway 1998e: 126–127), but has much smaller, narower, and more densely branching lobes, has an even, thinly tomentose lower surface, and lacks an attaching stalk and holdfast, which are characteristic of S. camarae.