Flora of New Zealand Series

Thallus crustose, amorphous, spreading in patches, closely attached to substrate at first but ultimately peeling or breaking from it, olive-green to yellowish-brown, corticolous or saxicolous. Photobiont green, Trentepohlia. Perithecia immersed, often in swollen pustules, ± globose, ± completely covered with thalline tissue, opening to exterior by a punctiform to ± dilated ostiole, dark brown to black. Paraphyses sparingly branched. Ascospores 6-8 per ascus, colourless, muriform.

Clathroporina, included in the family Clathroporinaceae, is a genus of mainly tropical crustose lichens with c. 60 species described. At least two species are recorded in New Zealand but at present the genus is poorly known and collected there and is in need of revision. It appears to be restricted to North I., very often in deeply shaded humid habitats, where, though mainly corticolous, it will spread onto shaded rocks in coastal areas.