Flora of New Zealand Series

Holotype: New Zealand. Canterbury, St James Walkway, Tarn Nature Trail, Lewis Pass road, 850 m, M.E. Hale 65352 – US. Isotypes – ANUC, BM, CHR, UPS.

Description : Thallus adnate to loosely attached, firm, whitish grey, 6–12 cm diam. Lobes subirregular to sublinear, little-branched, becoming divaricate, browning at apices, 1–4 mm wide. Upper surface shining, continuous to transversely cracked with age, plane, pseudocyphellate, without isidia or soredia. Pseudocyphellae forming a very narrow, nearly continuous marginal rim, 0.1–0.2 mm wide, also laminal and effigurate, 0.2–0.6 mm long, discrete, fissuring with age. Lower surface black, densely rhizinate. Rhizines simple to markedly squarrosely branched, 0.5–2 mm long, projecting as a mat beyond lobe margins. Apothecia common, subpedicellate, cupuliform, splitting radially with age, to 20 mm diam., the disc brown to dark-brown; exciple rugose and effigurate-pseudocyphellate. Hymenium 60–70 μm tall. Ascospores 10–15 × 7–10 μm; perispore 1 μm thick. Pycnidia common, 90–110 μm diam. Conidia cylindrical, bacillar, 5.5–6 μm long.

Chemistry : Cortex K+ yellow; medulla K+ yellow, C−, Pd+ yellow; containing atranorin, chloroatranorin, echinocarpic acid (major) and conechinocarpic acid (minor).

S: Nelson (Lake Rotoiti) to Southland (Tuatapere and Longwood Ra.). On trees and shrubs in forested areas, both E and W of the Main Divide, coastal and inland, though predominantly subalpine. Hale (1987: 31) notes "... Parmelia norcrambidiocarpa is by far the most common foliose lichen in the subalpine scrub zone on the major mountain chains running the length of the South Island. I collected 161 specimens at 32 localities, the bulk (85%) between 300 m and 910 m elevation. It comprised 23% of the 715 specimens I collected at random in New Zealand and 30% of the 88 collections in CHR". It is known also from the Bass Strait Is, Tasmania (Elix 1994m).

Australasian

Illustrations : Hale (1987: 6, fig. 4E; 29, fig. 17F).

Parmelia norcrambidiocarpa is characterised by: the corticolous habit; the sublinear to subirregular lobes; mainly marginal pseudocyphellae; absence of soredia or isidia; black rhizines present in a dense mat and projecting beyond the lobe margins; small ascospores, 12–15 × 7–10 μm; and echinocarpic acid as the major medullary constituent.