Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Opegrapha subeffigurans Nyl., Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 9: 258 (1866).

Lectotype: New Zealand. Otago, near Dunedin, on bark of totara pine, [W.L.] Lindsay – H-NYL 6227 [fide Hayward (1977: 578)]. Isolectotypes – BM, E [annotated by Lindsay "Green-Island Bush, 4 November 1861"].

Description : Flora (1985: 274).

Chemistry : TLC−, all reactions negative.

S: Canterbury (Riccarton Bush), Otago (Green Island Bush near Dunedin, and Fairfield). On bark of trees. This species is very poorly known in New Zealand.

Endemic

Illustrations : Lindsay (1866c: pl. XXIX, fig. 18A–C – as Opegrapha subeffigurans); Hayward (1977: 576, fig. 9D; 577, fig. 10F).

Melaspilea subeffigurans is characterised by: the corticolous habit; the thin, scurfy, sometimes obsolete thallus; the irregular, black, contorted to circular lirellae with a black disc; and 1-septate ascospores with uneven locules and slightly constricted at septum, 15–18(–21) × 5–8 μm.

Of Opegrapha subeffigurans, Lauder Lindsay (1866c: 415–416) wrote "...On the bark of the "Totara" pine (Podocarpus totara A.Cunn.), Greenisland Bush; associated with Arthonia platygraphella Nyl. The paraphyses, as in all the New Zealand Opegraphae, are delicate, filiform, indistinct, without coloured, clavate heads. The hymenial lichenine gives a yellow or pale wine-red tinge with iodine; the thecae a very pale blue...The spores are ellipsoidal-oblong, dark-brown, 1-septate, .0006" to .0008" long, and .0025" to .0003" broad. In the old state, there is frequently a constriction opposite the septum, giving them a figure-of-8 form." Material gathered by Lindsay on 4 November 1861 from Green Island Bush (E) grows with the type of Arthonia platygraphella (q.v.), as Lindsay noted above. Other specimens from Lindsay's Otago collections (BM) are associated with Chrysothrix candelaris and Punctelia subrudecta.