Parmelia signifera Nyl.
Lectotype: New Zealand, Sine loco. Charles Knight, 1882, H-NYL 34828!
Thallus thick, coriaceous, orbicular to spreading, to 10 cm diam., closely to loosely attached, saxicolous or terricolous. Lobes narrow (5-10 mm wide), relatively short (to 25 mm long), often forming secondary, imbricate, clustered, ascending lobules centrally, margins entire to ± phyllidiate or lacerate, incised at apices, sinuous, often black and shining. Upper surface smooth, often wrinkled-convolute at centre, leathery, brownish-grey or reddish-brown or blackened, olive greenish-brown to red-brown at margins and there conspicuously white-maculate, mottled, pseudocyphellae evident towards lobe margins, sigmoid or forming a cracked reticulum of white lines in older parts. Lower surface smooth, black, moderately rhizinate. Rhizines black, simple or branched. Apothecia rare, subpedicellate, to 8 mm diam., disc red-brown, matt, plane or concave, imperforate, margins entire at first, becoming fissured with age, thalline exciple strongly maculate-cracked, pseudocyphellate. Ascospores ellipsoid, 10-14 × 7-8 µm. Chemistry: Cortex K+ yellow; medulla K+ yellow → red, C-, KC+ red, Pd+ orange. Salazinic acid and atranorin.
N: Kaimanawa Ra. S: Nelson Mountains to the Longwood Ra. in Southland, both east and west of the Main Divide. St: (Mt Anglem to Port Pegasus). A: Alpine - subalpine from s.l. (Port Pegasus) to 2500 m.
Australasian
In Nylander's herbarium in Helsinki there is a large specimen of P. signifera (No 1645) named in Nylander's hand P. tenuirimis. On the same packet in Knight's handwriting is the note "( on stones Lake Wakatipu", a rare annotation, for Knight in his lichen collections usually neglected to specify any locality other than his customary Nova Zelandia. Since the type of P. signifera is a Knight specimen also of 1882, and closely similar in appearance to the large specimen from Lake Wakatipu, it is likely that the type is also from the Wakatipu collection, as Knight rarely travelled widely in the South I., particularly in subalpine areas where P. signifera is most common. It is known that he was in southern New Zealand in 1882 in connection with the geodetic survey of the country and may have visited the shores of Lake Wakatipu in connection with this project.
P. signifera is the most commonly encountered Parmelia in the mountains of New Zealand. The lack of soredia and isidia distinguishes it from P. saxatilis and P. sulcata. It is closely related to P. tenuirima from which it is distinguished by the smaller spores, scarcity of pycnidia, imperforate apothecial discs, thicker thallus texture, smaller, crowded lobes with phyllidiate-lacerate margins and a pattern of white maculae or pseudocyphellae at the margins which do not expose medullary hyphae. It is also exclusively saxicolous or terricolous. Although reasonably constant in morphology, specimens of P. signifera show considerable variation in colour and texture, depending on the degree of exposure of the habitat. In damp, sheltered sites, lobes are thinner, larger, and lighter-coloured while in strongly exposed habitats lobes are thicker, more crowded, lobular-incised, generally smaller and much darker coloured.
