Flora of New Zealand Series

Type : Graphis scripta (L.) Ach. [=Lichen scriptus L.]

Description : Flora (1985: 173).

Graphis is a large cosmopolitan genus of corticolous lichens with some 320 species (Kirk et al. 2001; Staiger & Kalb 2004c), included in the family Graphidaceae (Eriksson 1999, 2005; Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004). Eight species were recorded from New Zealand (Hayward 1977; Galloway 1985a; Archer 1999b, 2001b), but five of these are now accommodated in Fissurina (q.v.) (Staiger 2002). Delimitation of Graphis and of the taxa within it is noted in some detail by Wirth & Hale (1978), though prevalent generic concepts based on ascopore colour and septation are recognised as artificial (Staiger 2002). Currently, taxonomic characters accepted for species discrimination include: ascospore size, number of locules per ascospore, degree of carbonisation of the exciple, striations in the exciple, the extent of labial convergence; and thallus chemistry. In the most recent regional treatments of Graphis, those of Archer (1999b, 2001b, 2001e, 2002, 2004c) for Australian and Solomon I. species, and Nakanishi & Harada (1999) for Micronesian taxa, the same set of characters is followed. Species of Graphis are characterised by: black, elongate apothecia with entire or distinctly crenate to striate excipular lips, and often narrow, slit-like, rarely open discs; and hyaline, transversely septate or muriform ascospores that are I+ blue–violet (Staiger & Kalb 2004c). The genus in New Zealand is still very much under-collected and, together with the other lirelline lichen genera, deserves closer and more detailed study. Four species are treated here.