Flora of New Zealand Series

Holotype: New Zealand. South I., Nelson, Maruia River, Speargrass Flat near Springs Junction, on twigs of wayside shrubs, 22.ix.1981, D.J. Galloway s.n. – CHR 381022. Isotype – BM.

Description : Flora (1985: 450–451). See also Galloway (1988a: 187–188).

Chemistry : Methyl evernate (tr.), tenuiorin, methyl lecanorate (tr.), methyl gyrophorate, evernic acid (tr.), gyrophoric acid (tr.), hopane-6α,7β,22-triol, norstictic (tr.), salazinic, consalazinic, galbinic acids, pulvinic acid, pulvinic dilactone and calycin.

N: Hawke's Bay (Kuripapango). S: NW Nelson to Otago (Maungatua) [map in Galloway (1988a: 190, fig. 94)]. Close to and E of the Main Divide, in subalpine grasslands or on successional shrubs in areas modified by fire, 300 – 1200 m. It is most commonly found at the bases of tussocks or beneath alpine shrubs or herbs. Specimens from shaded habitats are larger, paler in colour and thinner in texture than specimens from exposed habitats which tend to be more coriaceous and strongly red-brown in colour. Known also from Irian Jaya and Papua New Guinea (Galloway 1994b).

Palaeotropical

Exsiccati : Vězda (1997a: No. 269).

Illustrations : Galloway (1988a: 188, fig. 92; 189, fig. 93); Malcolm & Galloway (1997: 165).

Pseudocyphellaria maculata is characterised by: a loose straggling habit (especially in alpine grassland); linear-elongate, dichotomously branching lobes with entire margins that are dotted with minute, yellow pseudocyphellae; a conspicuously faveolate upper surface with a well-defined reticulate pattern of white maculae (×10 lens), and lacking isidia, phyllidia pseudocyphellae and soredia; and a complex chemistry of depsidones, a hopane-triol, and a range of depsidones including salazinic and galbinic acids, compounds rarely found in species of Pseudocyphellaria in New Zealand.