Flora of New Zealand Series

C. aculeatum (Schreber) Link, Grundr. Kräuterk. 3: 165 (1833).

Lichen aculeatus Schreber, Spic. fl. lips.: 125 (1771).

Thallus fruticose, shrubby, erect, forming clumps 3-10 cm tall, loosely attached to the substrate and often dying below, pseudopodetia solid, brittle when dry, terricolous or muscicolous. Surface glossy, greyish-brown to brown or dark reddish-brown or blackened. Branches 1-2 mm thick, terete or partly deflated-angular, repeatedly branched, margins with small, thorny spines. Apothecia rare, terminal, concolorous with thallus, with subulate cilia on the thalline margin. Ascospores ellipsoid, minute, 5-9 × 3-4 µm. Chemistry: medulla K-, C-, KC-, Pd-. Rangiformic acid.

S: Canterbury (Torlesse Ra., Mt Peel, Four Peaks Ra., Kirkliston Ra.), Otago (Central Otago mountains). St: (Mt Anglem). Exposed alpine grasslands and fellfield, on the ground on mossy rocks or straggling amongst low vegetation, never on bare rock.

Bipolar

C. aculeatum is most commonly found in fellfield vegetation of the mountain ranges east of the Main Divide in Canterbury and Otago. It is rare on Mt Anglem in Stewart I., and is not known from North I.