Fuscidea subasbolodes
Description : Thallus crustose, forming irregular patches, 1–3 cm diam., delimited at margins by a prominent black prothallus. Upper surface pale- to dark-brown or greyish brown, rarely blackened in parts, areolate. Medulla white I−, K+ yellow→red (norstictic acid). Apothecia scattered to crowded, lecideine, innate at first, at length emergent, broadly adnate at base, rounded to deformed through mutual pressure, (0.4–)0.5–0.8 mm wide, 200–400 μm thick; disc black, glossy, plane to subconcave; proper margin concolorous with disc, thick, glossy, prominent, raised. Epithecium dark olive-brown, 10–12 μm thick. Hymenium colourless to dilute brownish, 50–70 μm tall. Paraphyses simple with occasional anastomoses, 1–1.5 μm thick, apices swollen, olive-brown to 3–4 μm diam. Asci pyriform to clavate, (40–)45–65 × 12–23 μm. Ascospores subglobose, ovoid to oblong-ellipsoidal, colourless, simple or spuriously 1-septate, 6–12(–13) × 5–8 μm. Pycnidia black, abundant, scattered, immersed, resembling minute apothecial initials. Conidia ellipsoidal, 3–4.5 × 1.5–2 μm.
Chemistry : Medulla K+ yellow→red, C−, KC−, Pd+ orange, UV−; containing norstictic acid.
S: (Borland Saddle). A: (Cloudy Peak). C: (S Col Peak, Lyall Ridge, Moubray Hill). On rock outcrops in subalpine grassland. Known also from Tasmania where it was at first thought to be endemic (Kantvilas 2001: 186; 2004g: 181–182; McCarthy 2003c, 2006), Staten I. (Argentina) and the Falkland Is (Fryday 2003).
Austral
Illustration : Kantvilas (2001: 183, fig. 4B, a).
Fuscidea subasbolodes is characterised by: the saxicolous habit; a thallus thicker than that of F. asbolodes; and norstictic acid in the medulla (K+ yellow→red). In all other respects the anatomy of the two taxa is similar (Kantvilas 2001: 185).
