Flora of New Zealand Series

Type : Spilonema paradoxum Bornet

Description : Flora (1985: 537).

Spilonema is a cosmopolitan genus of four species (Kirk et al. 2001), included in the family Coccocarpiaceae (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Eriksson 2005), with one species found in New Zealand. They are small, black, felted or coralline lichens found on rocks or among mosses or on bark in damp places, and because of their small size very easily overlooked. Spilonema was monographed by Henssen (1963d: 93–98), and an account of the genus in the Sonoran Desert is given by Schultz (2002c). It is still very much under-collected and poorly known here.