Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Parmelia byrsaea Ach., Methodus: 222 (1803).

Description : Flora (1985: 397).

N: Northland (Church Road Scenic Reserve, Waiwera), South Auckland, Gisborne (Waioeka Gorge), Hawke's Bay. S: Marlborough (Chetwode Is). In inland and coastal lowland localities in humid, low-light, forest habitats. Among mosses on bark of Cordyline australis. Still very poorly known and collected here. Widespread in the tropics: Africa, tropical America, Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Oceania, and Australia (Swinscow & Krog 1988; Verdon 1992b; Verdon & Elix 1994; Elix & McCarthy 1998; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).

Palaeotropical

Illustrations : Swinscow & Krog (1988: 235, fig. 116); Verdon (1992b: 194, fig. 48); Verdon & Elix (1994: 210, fig. 1; 211 fig. 5).

Physma byrsaeum is characterised by: the corticolous habit; the brownish, olive-green to greyish, glaucous-blue or blackish, strongly wrinkled, plicate–ridged, minutely maculate (×10 lens) thallus, turgid and expanded when moist, leathery and wrinkled when dry; sessile, laminal or occasionally marginal apothecia to 2.5 mm diam., the disc red-brown, glossy, waxy, without tomentum; and colourless, simple ascospores, 13–14 × 8–9 μm, with a thick perispore.