Flora of New Zealand Series

Description : Thallus foliicolous, subcuticular, effigurate, round to irregular, 3–8 mm diam., (sometimes as a border 1–2 mm wide along a wound), with short and rounded marginal lobes, or without lobes and with a ±entire margin, smooth or wrinkled, greenish grey, matt or glossy, 30–40 μm thick. Prothallus absent. Photobiont Cephaleuros, not in a simple layer, but concentrated in upper 6–10 μm of thallus, cells rectangular, oblong or irregular, 8–14 × 4–7 μm, forming irregular, dense threads. Perithecia (0.25–)0.3–0.4 mm diam., 80–150 μm tall, convex, upper parts plane, basal parts immersed in thallus; a sharp and distinct boundary between exposed, black, glossy upper parts (0.2–0.4 mm diam.) and the thalline cover of the basal parts. Involucrellum reduced, dark-brown, 4–12 μm thick. Exciple black at sides, colourless below centrum, 10 μm thick. Centrum applanate, 100–300 × 50–130 μm. Paraphyses simple, 1 μm thick. Asci cylindrical, 40–60 × 4–5 μm. Ascospores biseriate, 8 per ascus, at first 1-septate, ellipsoidal to bacillar with obtuse apices, and a distinct constriction at septum, 9–12 × 2 μm; ascospores often breaking at septum into 2 part-cells, bacillar, distinctly thicker towards one end, 5–6 × 2 μm. Pycnidia rare, 0.1 mm diam., partially immersed. Microconidia simple, fusiform, 4–5 × 1.5 μm. Macroconidia not seen.

N: Auckland (Waitakere Ra.). On leaves of Alectryon excelsum (Bartlett 1988). Probably more widespread in northern coastal forest. Known also from Central and Southern America, East Africa, Cocos Is, Hawai'i and New Caledonia (Santesson 1925; Smith 1977; Lücking 1992; Lücking & Lücking 1995; Farkas & Sipman 1997; Smith et al. 1997; Elix & McCarthy 1998; Lücking & Kalb 2001).

Pantropical

Illustrations : Santesson (1952: 176, fig. 24); Lücking (1992: 46, fig. 11E; 48, fig. 12A).

Strigula schizospora is characterised by: the foliicolous habit; the distinctive thallus growing around holes or wounds in leaves and at the leaf margins; the perithecial anatomy; and the 1-septate ascospores that fragment into 2 part-spores.