Flora of New Zealand Series

Type : Gyalecta geoica (Wahlenb.) Ach. [=Lichen geoicus Wahlenb.]

Description : Thallus crustose, smooth, continuous to cracked and scurfy, effuse or inconspicuous. Photobiont green, Trentepohlia. Ascomata apothecia, sessile, disc plane to strongly concave or urceolate, commonly waxy, pale, pinkish, orange or brownish, translucent when moist. Thalline exciple absent. Proper exciple well-developed, persistent, pale whitish or concolorous with disc. Asci thin-walled, without apical apparatus or tholus, contents and wall I+ blue, 8-spored. Ascospores ellipsoidal to fusiform, transversely septate to muriform, colourless, not halonate. Conidiomata pycnidia, colourless to brown. Conidia bacillar, short.

Gyalecta, included in the family Gyalectaceae (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Eriksson 2005) is widespread in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere where some 65 species are presently known (Lettau 1937; Vězda 1958; Lücking 1999c; Alvarez-Andrés & Lopéz de Silanes 2002; Ryan & Nimis 2004a). One species is doubtfully known from New Zealand.