Flora of New Zealand Series

Type : Fuscopannaria leucosticta (Tuck.) P.M.Jørg. [=Parmelia leucosticta Tuck.]

Description : Thallus squamulose, ±brownish. Lower surface whitish to black, covered in whitish to blue-black rhizohyphae. Photobiont cyanobacterial, Nostoc, in clusters, rarely with a green photobiont. Ascomata apothecia, ± frequent, laminal, with crenulate, ± well-developed thalline exciple obscuring proper exciple. Hymenium I+ blue-green turning red-brown. Asci with an amyloid apical plug. Ascospores ellipsoidal to subglobose. Containing fatty acids and terpenes or TLC−.

Fuscopannaria, included in the family Pannariaceae (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Eriksson 2005), is a temperate genus of some 44 taxa (Jørgensen 1994b, 1999a, 2000a, 2000d, 2000e, 2002a, 2002g, 2003c, 2004b, 2004e; Jørgensen & Zhurbenko 2002) with a centre of diversity in the Northern Hemisphere where 33 species are present, with Pacific North America being an especially species-rich region with 27 taxa represented (Jørgensen 2000d, 2002a; Jørgensen & Zhurbenko 2002; Fryday 2004b), and 12 species are recorded from eastern Asia (Jørgensen 2000e), with a further three new species recently described from high altitudes in India and China (Jørgensen 2004b). It is characterised by the often brownish, small-squamulose thalli that are Pd− (without pannarin but often containing fatty acids and terpenoids), producing apothecia with variable development of a thalline margin, and hemiamyloid hymenia containing asci with distinct, amyloid structures of sheets or tubular rings (Jørgensen 1994b, 2004b). Fuscopannaria was divided into two subgenera, viz. subgen. Fuscopannaria, typified by F. leucosticta, and subgen. Micropannaria, typified by F. leucophaea (Jørgensen 1994b). Recent molecular work on phylogeny in the family Pannariaceae shows that Fuscodermasubgen.Micropannaria does not belong in that family, and has affinities rather with the Lobariaceae (Ekman & Jørgensen 2002). Six species occur in the Southern Hemisphere, four of which are known from New Zealand. The identity and status of Southern Hemisphere taxa is still under investigation. The earlier competing genus Hueëlla Zahlbr. is now formally rejected in favour of Fuscopannaria (Gams 2002: 791).