Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Lecanora subdeflexa Nyl. Flora 62 : 355 (1879). 

Description : Thallus irregularly spreading 1–3(–5) cm diam., effuse, granular or minutely papillate, roughened, not smooth or shining, areolate, dull olive-green to greenish grey, without isidia or soredia. Apothecia common, widely scattered to crowded, solitary or 2–3-together, round to irregular or deformed through mutual pressure, 0.1–0.3(–0.5) mm diam., sessile, not constricted at base, plane to shallowly convex, immarginate, disc smooth, matt, mustard-yellow to yellow-brown centrally, occasionally minutely yellow-pruinose (×10 lens). Epithecium yellow, densely granular, 8.5–15 μm thick, pigment darkening to olive-brown in K, the granules dissolving. Hymenium colourless to very pale straw-yellow in K, inspersed with oil droplets, 65–85 μm tall. Paraphyses simple, septate, apices not noticeably thickened. Hypothecium hyaline, densely interwoven, 130–150 μm thick. Asci clavate 30–38 × 8.2–13 μm, 8-spored. Ascospores oblong-ellipsoidal, slightly curved, colourless, simple with 2–3 large vacuoles or with a very thin septum and 2–3 vacuoles, (13.5–)15–17.5 × 5–7.5 μm.

Chemistry : Thallus and apothecia K−, C−, KC−, Pd−; containing calycin and pulvinic acid dilactone.

S: Otago (Mt Benger). On eutrophicated, basal trunks of isolated Sophora microphylla trees in pasture. Still very imperfectly known in New Zealand. It occurs on the eutrophic or nutrient-enriched bark of isolated trees of Ulmus and Populus in Central and Southern Europe (Hakulinen 1954; Poelt 1964: 254; Nimis 1993: 194; Scholz 2000; Hafellner & Türk 2001; Nimis & Martellos 2003), and is also recorded from North America (Esslinger & Egan 1995; Westberg 2004), North Africa and Asia (Hakulinen 1954).

Bipolar

Illustration : Hakulinen (1954: 25, tab. 1, fig. 13).

Candelariella subdeflexa is characterised by: the rather insignificant scurfy, granular-effuse, olive green to greenish-grey, areolate thallus which is neither isidiate nor sorediate, and the prominent, mustard-yellow, immarginate, sessile apothecia (K−), with 8-spored asci containing simple (vacuolate) to 1-septate ascospores, (13.5–)15–17.5 × 5–7.5 μm.