Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Lichen hypnorum Vahl, Fl. Dan. 6, fasc. 16: 8 (1787).

Description : Flora (1985: 475).

Chemistry : TLC−, all reactions negative.

N: Gisborne (Mt Hikurangi). S: Nelson (Lake Rotoroa), Marlborough (Mt Tapuaenuku, Inland Kaikoura Ra.), Canterbury (Cass, Ben Ohau Ra.), Otago (Mt Earnslaw, Dunstan Mts, Old Man Ra., Lee Stream), Southland (Borland Burn). On damp subalpine to high-alpine soil. Known also from Great Britain, Scandinavia, Europe, North America including Mexico, and Asia, Australia, Charcot I., Ecuador, southern South America and the Falklands Is, South Georgia and maritime Antarctica (Grassi 1950; Jørgensen 1978, 2002d; Galloway & Quilhot 1999; Convey et al. 2000; Øvstedal & Lewis Smith 2001; Liberatore & Calvelo 2002; McCarthy 2003c, 2006; Nimis & Martellos 2003; Jørgensen & Arvidsson 2004; Søchting et al. 2004).

Bipolar

Illustrations : Brightman & Nicolson (1974: 65, fig. 5): Keuck (1977: pl. 175, 181, 182); Jørgensen (1978: 28, fig. 7; 29, fig. 8; 30, figs 9B, D; 31, fig. 10B; 90, fig. 47A; 91, fig. 48; 94, fig. 51; 2000d: 701, fig. 53; 2000f: 47, fig. 2); Jahns (1980: 226, pl. 553); Moberg & Holmåsen (1982: 168); Thomson (1984: 376); Vitt et al (1988: 227); Dobson (1992: 287; 2005: 373); Jørgensen & Galloway (1992b: 283, fig. 97C); Goward et al. (1994b: 122, fig. 1A); Hansen (1995: 111); McCune & Gieser (1997: 181); St. Clair (1999: 172); Holien & Jørgensen 2000: 50, fig. 1); Brodo et al. (2001: 605, pl. 732); Øvstedal & Lewis Smith (2001: pl. 72).

Psoroma hypnorum is characterised by: the terricolous habit; the squamulose, almost granular thallus, the squamules 0.2–0.5 mm diam., greenish to ochre-brown, developing on a thin, indistinct, pale prothallus; cephalodia that are scattered among the thalline squamules or on the outer surface of apothecia; apothecia frequent, 1–3(–5) mm diam., the disc plane to undulate, brown or red-brown, smooth, matt, epruinose, with entire to subsquamulose thalline margins without projecting hairs; and ellipsoidal ascospores, 19–28 × 8–10 μm, with a distinctively warted perispore, 2–3 μm thick. A totally cyanobacterial population of P. hypnorum with no associated green algae as photobiont was reported from Norway by Holien & Jørgensen (2000) and was shown not to be a free-living cephalodium of this species. This totally cyanobacterial phase of P. hypnorum is extremely rare and has not been reported elsewhere.