Flora of New Zealand Series

Type : Canoparmelia texana (Tuck.) Elix & Hale [Parmelia texana Tuck.]

Description : Thallus foliose, adnate or tightly adnate. Lobes sublinear to subirregular, 0.5–8 mm wide, eciliate; apices subrotund to rotund, more rarely truncate. Upper surface ashy white to grey or grey-green (atranorin and chloroatranorin), without pseudocyphellae, with or without maculae, isidia, pustules and soredia; upper cortex consisting of basic palisade plectenchyma with pored epicortex. Cell walls containing isolichenan. Medulla loosely packed, white, rarely buff, or partly yellow or orange. Lower surface commonly black, rarely pale-brown, with concolorous rhizines; lobe margins with a narrow (less than 1 mm wide), pale, erhizinate zone; rhizines simple, tufted or not. Ascomata apothecia, laminal, sessile or subpedicellate; disc entire. Ascospores commonly ellipsoidal, rarely elongated ellipsoidal. Conidiomata pycnidia, punctiform or rarely crateriform immersed or rarely slightly emergent; ostiole jet-black. Conidia bifusiform, more rarely cylindrical, bacillar, fusiform or filiform.

Canoparmelia, included in the family Parmeliaceae (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Eriksson 2005) is a genus of c. 45 described species of which four are recorded from New Zealand. It was described as a segregate of the heterogeneous genus Pseudoparmelia (Hale 1974a, 1974b, 1976a, 1976b) to accommodate species of the Parmelia texana -group and 28 taxa were referred to it (Elix et al. 1986c). Species of Canoparmelia are characterised by the relatively narrow, eciliate lobes, a pored epicortex, the presence of isolichenan in the cell walls, and simple rhizines (Elix 1993a). The genus is known from tropical, subtropical and temperate areas (Elix 1993a, 1993b, 1994d, 1997a; Elix & Johnston 1988a; Heiman & Elix 1999; Kurokawa & Lai 2001; Nash & Elix 2002b).