Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Haematomma sordidum C.W. Dodge in B.A. Fineran, Trans. Roy. Soc. N.Z. (Bot.) 3 (17): 247 (1969).

Holotype: New Zealand. Snares Is on rock near shore, 30.i.1961, B.A. Fineran 86 – FH. Isotype – CANU.

Description : Thallus crustose, spreading in irregular, areolate patches, 1–3 cm diam., of clumped, minute squamules on a thin to subbyssoid, black prothallus. Squamules minute, granular, 0.1–0.5 mm diam., margins scalloped to minutely lobulate, hummocky, coalescing in friable clumps to 1 mm diam., separated by narrow to widely gaping cracks and exposing black prothallus. Surface matt, pale-greenish when moist, dirty-cream to pale-fawnish when dry. Apothecia widely scattered, infrequent, sessile, constricted at base, 0.2–1 mm diam., rounded; thalline margins thin, persistent, entire, concolorous with thallus; disc plane to shallowly convex, yellowish brown to dark-brown, epruinose. Epithecium brown, 8–10 μm thick, unchanged in K. Hymenium colourless, 45–55 μm tall. Hypothecium opaque, of densely interwoven hyphae, to 125 μm thick. Asci clavate, 35–45(–50) × 13–17 μm, 8-spored, with a thick tholus, 8–10 μm tall, occasionally with a small ocular chamber. Paraphyses lax, slender, 1.5–2.5 μm thick, apices dark-brown, swollen, to 3.5 μm diam. Ascospores fusiform-ellipsoidal, colourless, 1-septate [mature, released spores are vacuolate or may have several spurious plasma bridges, appearing 4- or more-septate; spores in the ascus are always consistently 1-septate] (12–)15–18(–20) × 3.5–5 μm, with pointed apices and without a perispore.

Sn: Known only from the type locality in several collections.

Endemic

Solenopsora sordida is characterised by: the saxicolous habit (coastal rocks); the clumped, areolate, microphylline thallus dispersed on a thin, black prothallus; scattered, sessile apothecia with persistent thalline margins, concolorous with the thallus, and a plane to subconvex, yellowish brown to dark-brown, epruinose disc; and 1-septate ascospores, 15–18(–20) × 3.5–5 μm, with pointed apices and without a perispore. The holotype material was examined by Staiger & Kalb (1995: 185–186) who found it to contain 1-septate ascospores [the protologue states "ascosporae octone acidulares [sic], 8-loculares, 20 × 2.5 μm" (Fineran 1969: 247)], and considered it referable to Solenopsora, although they did not make the appropriate combination (Kantvilas 2004a: 113). Material in FH comprises the holotype (Fineran 86) and four additional collections (Fineran 63, 83 [Genevieve Lewis-Gentry pers. comm.]), while the CANU isotype comprises two small fragments. The recently described S. tasmanica (Kantvilas 2004a) is an alpine species with a thinner thalline margin, darker apothecial discs, and shorter ascospores.