Flora of New Zealand Series

=BULLATINA Vězda & Poelt 1987 

Type : Calenia depressa Müll.Arg.

Type : Bullatina aspidota (Vain.) Vězda & Poelt  Ectolechia aspidota Vain. (=Calenia aspidota (Vain.) Vězda)]

Description : Thallus crustose, effuse, sometimes with ±white hairs, with a partly cartilaginous, cortex-like layer. Photobiont green, Chlorococcaceae. Trichomes whitish, arcuate, simple up to 1.2 mm long, apices acute. Ascomata apothecia, immersed in thallus but usually prominent to ±sessile, Calenia -type (Lücking 1997a: 99, fig. 17E). Excipulum paraplectenchymatous, externally surrounded by algiferous thalline tissue. Hymenium I−. Hamathecium of paraphyses, paraphyses branched and anastomosing. Asci ±thick-walled, 1–8-spored. Ascospores with one to several transverse septa, exceptionally muriform, colourless. Conidiomata hyphophores.

Calenia is a genus of tropical, foliicolous lichens included in the family Gomphillaceae (Vězda & Poelt 1987; Kalb & Vězda 1988b; Lücking 1997a; Dennetière & Péroni 1998; Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Eriksson 2005) and appears most closely related, in terms of apothecial structure, to the genera Caleniopsis and Gyalectidium (Lücking 1997a) a view supported by recent phylogenetic studies (Dennetière & Péroni 1998; Lücking et al. 2005). Twenty-nine species are currently recognised (Vězda & Poelt 1987; Brusse 1992, 1993; Lücking et al. 2005), with one species known from New Zealand (Bartlett 1988; Polly 1997). The genus Bullatina Vězda & Poelt zda & Poelt 1987) was recently shown to be conspecific with Calenia (Lücking et al. 2005: 142).