Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Lichen chlorophyllus Willd. in F.W.H.A. von Humboldt, Fl. Frib. Specim.: 20 (1793).

≡Cetraria chlorophylla (Willd.) Vain., Acta Soc. Fauna Fl. fenn. 13: 7 (1896).

Description : Thallus 1–4 cm diam., foliose, loosely tufted, rather straggling, loosely attached centrally. Lobes few to numerous, 1–3 × 0.2–1 cm, flat to ±canaliculate. Margins wavy, notched or incised, ascending. Upper surface olive-brown or brown, greenish when wet, smooth to somewhat wrinkled, sorediate. Soredia marginal, frequent, greyish white. Lower surface pale-brown, sparsely rhizinate centrally, elsewhere glabrous. Apothecia not seen.

Chemistry : Medulla K−, C−, KC−, Pd−; containing protolichesterinic acid.

N: Northland (Hihitahi State Forest). On bark of rimu trees. Still very poorly known and collected in New Zealand. It is widespread in boreal-montane habitats in the Northern Hemisphere where it is a common epiphyte of conifers and occasionally colonises rocks in humid sites (Esslinger 2004b). Goward & Ahti (1992: 15) remark of this species "Incompletely circumpolar, common on west coasts and far inland in North America and Eurasia but very rare on the east coasts, and absent in large areas in the interior boreal lowlands of North America and Eurasia, (oro)hemiarctic to temperate". It is known also from southern South America (Adler & Calvelo 2002: 14, map 1 gives a world map of the species currently known distribution) and Australia (McCarthy 2003c, 2006).

Bipolar

Illustrations : Galløe (1948: 43, pls 73, 74 – as Cetraria chlorophylla); Jahns (1980: 185, pl. 402); Moberg & Holmåsen (1982: 73); Wirth (1987: 121; 1995b: 273); Hale & Cole (1988: plate 10c); Vitt et al. (1988: 215); Goward et al. (1994b: 75, fig. 10A – as Cetraria chlorophylla); McCune & Geiser (1997: 51); Kantvilas & Jarman (1999: 148, fig. 121); Dobson (2000: 109 – as Cetraria chlorophylla); Brodo et al. (2001: 693, pl. 850); Kantvilas et al. (2002: 159).

Tuckermanopsis chlorophylla is characterised by: the corticolous habit; the loosely tufted, straggling thallus; flat to subcanaliculate lobes with scattered marginal cilia; an olive-brown or greenish upper surface; grey-white, marginal soredia; and protolichesterinic acid.