Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Parmelia spinosa Hook.f. & Taylor, Lond. J. Bot. 3: 644 (1844).

Description : Thallus small, straggling decumbent, 0.5–1.5(–2) cm diam., occasionally forming small cushions. Lobes small, narrow, subdichotomously branching, 0.2–0.8 mm wide, ±flattened, pale whitish below, yellow to orange-red above, with laminal and marginal cilia scattered to densely developed on the upper surface, and occasional and widely scattered rhizines on the lower surface. Soralia present, minute, granular to nodular, often dense and giving thalli a granular appearance, sometimes becoming erose-excavate; soredia farinose to slightly granular, yellow-orange. Apothecia not seen. Pycnidia rare, large and protruding. Conidia bacillar.

Chemistry : Chemosyndrome A; with parietin (major), emodin, parietinic acid, fallacinal, teloschistin and erythroglaucin (Søchting & Frödén 2002 – as T. excelsior).

N: Wellington (Cape Palliser). S: Marlborough (Chetwode Is, Fairhall Valley), Otago (Kurow, Benmore Dam, Alexandra). Both coastal and inland, on rocks in dry localities. It is still very poorly known and collected in New Zealand. Also known in Australia (where it is also corticolous), from New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania (Filson 1969, 1996; Filson & Rogers 1979; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).

Australasian

Teloschistes spinosus is characterised by: the saxicolous habit; small, straggling thalli, 0.5–1.5(–2) cm diam.; narrow, subdichotomously branching lobes with prominent, thick laminal and marginal cilia scattered to dense on upper surface, and widely scattered rhizines below; minute, marginal and more rarely laminal, soralia commonly present (often dense and giving thalli a granular appearance), sometimes becoming erose-excavate; soredia yellow-orange, farinose to slightly granular, but smaller than in T. fasciculatus. Apothecia are not known in New Zealand collections. Pycnidia are large and protruding (but rare in New Zealand collections), with straight (bacillar) conidia, which differ from those of all other New Zealand species (in T. chrysophthalmus and some other foreign species of Teloschistes, conidia are bacillar to narrowly ellipsoidal). T. spinosus is similar to T. sieberianus (q.v.), but this latter species has different conidia, is never sorediate, and usually has more decumbent lobes and thinner cilia that are often white-tipped.