Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Flora (1985: 606).

S: Otago (Allan's Beach, Black Head, Kaka Point), Southland (Bluff, Howell's Point, Secretary I.). St: (Port Pegasus). A: On coastal rocks, often associated with Candelariella, Caloplaca, Rinodina, Verrucaria bubalina, V. maura, V. mucosa, V. striatula, V. striatula ssp. australis and V. tessellatula. Also known from the Falkland Is, Chilean Tierra del Fuego, South Georgia, Marion and Prince Edward Is, and Maquarie I. (Lamb 1948b: 207; McCarthy 1991d: 346, 2003c; Øvstedal & Gremmen 2001; Øvstedal & Lewis Smith 2001: 357).

Austral

Illustrations : Lamb (1948b: 206, fig. 1; 209, fig. 2; pl. 1); Brodo & Santesson (1997: 31, fig. 7).

Verrucaria durietzii is a marine lichen, not exactly amphibious, but characteristic of the zone just above high tide level (lower hygrohaline), where it is exposed to the salt spray from wave action (Lamb 1948a). It is characterised by a pale buff-brown to dark-brown thallus and a well-developed carbonaceous prothallus up to 2 mm thick. It forms large, continuous colonies that are distinctly lobate (placodioid-effigurate) at the margins and deeply areolate centrally. Its black perithecia, 0.15–0.3 mm wide, are semi-immersed to ±entirely immersed and have a generally poorly-developed apical to dimidiate involucrellum. The ascospores are 12–17 × 7–11 μm. These characters distinguish V. dureitzii from the related taxa V. bubalina (q.v.) and V. tessellatula (q.v.).