Flora of New Zealand Series

Type : Acarospora schleicheri (Ach.) A.Massal. [=Urceolaria schleicheri Ach.]

Description : Flora (1985: 1). See also Purvis & James (1992a: 58).

Acarospora is a cosmopolitan genus comprising some 200 known species accommodated in the family Acarosporaceae which comprises the genera Acarospora, Glypholechia, Lithoglypha, Polysporina, Sarcogyne and Thelocarpella (Hafellner 1995a; Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Reeb et al. 2004; Eriksson 2005). Most species of Acarospora are found on siliceous rocks (rarely on basic rocks), on soil or occasionally on wood. The extensive taxonomic studies on the genus of Magnusson (1924, 1929, 1936, 1937, 1943b, 1956) are still of fundamental importance, but the genus is still very incompletely known and poorly collected in the Southern Hemisphere and major revisionary work on it there still remains to be done. The yellow species were synonymised into two species by Weber (1968), but this is too broad a view and is not accepted by many taxonomists (e.g. Nimis 1993; Castello & Nimis 1994). European taxa are discussed by Clauzade & Roux (1981). Hafellner (1993) distinguished two natural groups among the yellow species, Acarospora s. str. (including its type A. schleicheri), and Pleopsidium Körb., for the former "A. chlorophana -group", and showed that the two genera are different in ascus structure, conidiomata, upper cortex, secondary chemistry, habitat ecology and biogeography. Recent work on the polysporous genera formerly included in the Acarosporaceae s. lat. (Hafellner & Casares-Porcel 1992; Hafellner 1993a, 1995a) has led to a more natural circumscription of the family and its component genera. Acarospora is still very much in need of collection and close investigation in New Zealand. Eleven taxa are accepted in this account, but it is recognised that this is still a very conservative view of the genus here.