Anisomeridium magnosporum (C.Knight) D.Hawksw.
*Account prepared by Dr D.L. Hawksworth.
Verrucaria magnospora Knight, Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23: 99 (1860), tab. II, fig. 5.
Holotype: New Zealand. Sine loco (prob. Wellington). Charles Knight, WELT Herb. Knight Vol. 58 p. 18!
Thallus grey-white, decorticate-effuse, continuous, in irregular patches among other lichens on bark, 2-3 cm diam., delimited at margins by a thin, irregular, black line. Ascomata black, or veiled by a thin layer of cortical cells, 0.1-1.10 mm diam., round to irregular, plane to convex. Asci elongate-clavate, 75 × 23 µm. Pseudoparaphyses c. 1 µm thick, delicate, anastomosing. Ascospores biseriate, 1-septate, constricted at septum, almost equal-celled, thick-walled, smooth-walled, 40-56 × 17-22 µm.
N: ?Wellington. Known only from the type collection.
Endemic
This species is clearly related to an undescribed species from Florida which differs in having rather narrower ascospores (12-20 µm wide), conspicuously eccentric ostioles, and an orange pigment around the ostiole which turns purple in potassium hydroxide (D. Hawksworth pers. comm.)
