Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Biatora colensoi C.Bab. in J.D. Hooker, Fl. Nov. Zel. 2: 298 (1855).

≡Lecidea colensoi (C.Bab.) C.Bab. in J.D. Hooker, Handb. N. Z. Fl. 2: 584 (1867).

≡Psora colensoi (C.Bab.) Müll.Arg., Bull. Soc. Roy. Bot. Belg. 31 (2): 31 (1892).

Holotype: New Zealand. Sine loco (North I.), W. Colenso – BM. Isotype – WELT.

Description : Flora (1985: 584–585).

N: Wellington (Ruahine Ra., Tararua Ra.). S: Nelson (Mt Cobb, Hoary Head, Mt Aorere, Mt Owen, Mt Zetland), Marlborough (Mt Stokes), Canterbury (Boyle River, Temple Basin, Arthur's Pass, Craigieburn Ra.), Otago (Park Pass Rockburn, Routeburn, Von River, Kakanui Mts, Mt Pisgah, Poolburn Reservoir, Lake Onslow, Blue Mts), Southland (Longwood Ra.) both E and W of the Main Divide. St: On soil, peat, decaying stumps or dead tussock bases, mainly subalpine habitats though it is also often found at margins of beech forest. Also in Victoria and Tasmania (Kantvilas 1994b; Filson 1996; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).

Australasian [possibly ?Cosmopolitan]

Illustrations : Schneider (1980: 144, fig. 23.1; 147, fig. 24).

Trapeliopsis colensoi is characterised by: the terricolous/corticolous habit; its swollen, overlapping, squamulose thallus; the glaucous greenish, to pale-greyish or fawn-grey, rather scabrid upper surface; the pale-greenish to whitish, marginal, labriform soralia; the orange-brown or yellowish lower surface; the purplish black confluent apothecia. Qualifying his description of Biatora colensoi, Babington (1855: 299) wrote, "The thallus a good deal resembles that of a Cladonia; the scales are not so closely packed as in many species of this genus but show at intervals the earth on which they are growing. Apothecia variable in size and shape, of a singular hue, owing to the colour of the medullary stratum shining through; they are covered with a glaucous farina, which is but partially persistent, and somewhat resemble in general appearance those of Biatora aurantiaca, when they become confluent. The glaucous colour of the scales, taken in conjunction with the ferruginous inner stratum and the under side, distinguish this Lichen at once." Grassland specimens are sometimes parasitised by a minute, black perithecioid lichenicolous fungus. It is likely that the more widely distributed taxa, T. glaucolepidea and T. haumanii, that have wider, disjunct distributions (Europe, E Africa, tropical America and Papua New Guinea) are conspecific with T. colensoi, a question currently under investigation (Z. Palice, pers. comm.).