Flora of New Zealand Series

Type : Trypethelium eluteriae Spreng.

Description : Flora (1985:587).

Trypethelium is a mainly tropical genus of c. 100 species (Kirk et al. 2001), included in the family Trypetheliaceae (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Eriksson 2005). Trypethelium is characterised by a corticolous, crustose thallus; Trentepohlia as photobiont; ascomata perithecioid, embedded in a pseudostroma; fissitunicate, cylindrical or clavate asci; interascal hyphae branched and anastomosing and forming a loose, irregular network; and colourless, transversely septate ascospores with ovate, angular or cruciform lumina. Malme (1924a) recorded taxa from southern Brazil and Paraguay, and Harris (1986) discussed the family and the genus from Amazonian Brazil. Recently Makhija & Patwardhan (1993) discussed 30 species occurring in India. One species is recorded from New Zealand, but the genus is virtually unstudied here and much in need of study and collection.