Flora of New Zealand Series

Thallus crustose, often effuse or lacking. Photobiont if present, green, Trentepohlia, often lacking. Ascocarps in the form of pseudothecia, simple, emergent. Pseudoparaphyses persistent. Ascospores colourless, curved 4-8 per ascus, 1-3(-13)-septate, acicular to fusiform-cylindrical, arranged in one or two bundles in ascus.

Leptorhaphis is a cosmopolitan pyrenocarp genus of c. 36 species included in the family Pleosporaceae [Harris Mich. Bot. 12: (1973)], and is doubtfully lichenised, although frequently regarded as a lichen genus by mycologists and lichenologists [Swinscow Lichenologist 3: 72-83 (1965)]. All species are corticolous and appear to be true epiphytes and not parasites (Harris loc. cit. ). One species is recorded from New Zealand where the genus is very much undercollected and in need of further study.