Flora of New Zealand Series

Type : Urecolaria cinereaβalba Schaer.,  typ. cons. [=A. cinerea (L.) Körb. (=Lichen cinereus L.)]

Description : Thallus crustose, weakly cracked to distinctly areolate, areolae contiguous to scattered, chalky white, greyish, greenish or brownish. Isidia and soredia present in some species. Cortex pseudoparenchymatous. Photobiont green, chlorococcoid, cells globose to ellipsoidal. Medulla I−. Ascomata apothecia, aspicilioid (cryptolecanorine), mostly immersed, occasionally becoming emergent, more rarely lecanorine and soon emergent and ±sessile. Thalline exciple poorly developed and becoming excluded, more rarely well-developed and persistent, often little more than a slightly raised rim of thallus tissue, but well differentiated in some species. Proper exciple usually colourless and poorly developed. Disc plane to concave, red-brown to brown-black, sometimes white-pruinose. Epithecium pigmented brown to green, N− or N+ green, K− or K+ fading to brown (Aspicilia green). Hymenium usually taller than 100 μm, colourless, I+ greenish or blue. Hypothecium colourless or very pale brownish. Hamathecium of paraphyses, simple to sparingly branched, commonly anastomosing, short-celled and moniliform to submoniliform above, apices cohering to form a well-defined epithecium. Asci 4- to 8-spored, cylindrical to clavate, outer coat K/I+ blue, wall and apical dome K/I−. Ascospores simple, ellipsoidal to globose, colourless, thin-walled, sometimes with a thin perispore, I−. Conidiomata pycnidia, immersed, flask-like to ±globose, scattered or clustered; wall colourless or pigmented in upper parts brownish or greenish as in epithecium. Conidia simple, bacillar to shortly thread-like and ±straight, colourless. Aspicilia is a genus of c. 100 species (Kirk et al. 2001) included in the family Hymeneliaceae (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2004; Eriksson 2005). Its nomenclatural history is discussed in Laundon & Hawksworth (1988). It is distinguished from Lecanora (q.v.) by the K/I– ascus apical dome and moniliform paraphyses, and species of Bellemerea (q.v.) differ in having Porpidia -type asci. Megaspora (q.v.) is very close to Aspicilia (Ivanova & Hafellner 2002).

There is a wide and scattered literature on Aspicilia with the following treatments containing much useful information (Hue 1910; Magnusson 1939, 1944c, 1952; Weber 1967; Eigler 1969; Clauzade & Roux 1984; Janex-Favre 1985; Hafellner 1991; Nimis 1993; Rosentreter 1998; Santesson et al. 2004). * Lichenostigma Hafellner (q.v.) is a genus of lichenicolous fungi occurring on Aspicilia (Navarro-Rosinés & Hafellner 1996). Five species are discussed here, but it is recognised that the genus in New Zealand is still very much under-collected and poorly known, and undoubtedly many more species occur here than records presently show.