Thelotrema lepadinum
Synonyms
Lichen lepadinus Ach.
Family
Graphidaceae
Flora category
Lichen – Native
Endemic taxon
No
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Structural class
Lichens - Crustose
Current conservation status
2018 | Not Threatened | Qualifiers: SO
Brief description
Characterised by the corticolous habit; emergent apothecia with a blackish disc; colourless muriform ascospores with thick walls, 35–130 × 10–25 μm; and a negative thallus chemistry.
The most frequently collected species of Thelotrema in New Zealand.
Distribution
North Island: Northland (Three Kings Islands, Te Paki Trig Bush, Herekino, Kawerua, Tutamoe, Bay of Islands, Tapu Bush N Kaipara, Hen & Chickens Islands, Fanal Island, Little Barrier Island, Great Barrier Island, Helena Bay, Wellsford), Auckland (Waitakere Ranges), South Auckland (Great Mercury Island, Shoe Island, Te Aroha, Pirongia, Motuhora Island), Gisborne (Waipatiki Beach), Wellington (Kapiti Island, Tararua Ranges, Eastbourne). South Island: Nelson (Kaihoka Lakes, Cobb Ridge, Ruby Lake), Marlborough (Ship Cove, d’Urville Island, Chetwode Islands), Canterbury, Otago, Southland (Manapouri). Stewart Island: (Magog Fraser Peaks). Auckland Islands. Campbell Island.
Known also from Great Britain, Scandinavia, Europe, Macaronesia, Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Asia, Japan, Hawai’i, North, Cantral and South America, Juan Fernandez and Australia.
Designated by the late Mason Hale as a “pantemperate weed”.
Habitat
Throughout, and often common, on bark of forest trees (Carpodetus, Dacrycarpus, Dacrydium, Griselinia, Hoheria, Nothofagus [Fuscospora, Lophozonia] etc.), especially common on podocarp scales, s.l. to 1000 m.
Detailed description
Thallus pale fawn, buff-yellowish or whitish or olive-greenish, in irregular patches 0.5-5.0(-10) cm diam., minutely granular-verrucose or wrinkled-plicate, matt or ± effuse-roughened, or ± continuous, with occasional cracks, very faintly and minutely white-maculate when wet (×10 lens). Apothecia frequent, prominent, hemispherical, 0.2-2.0 mm diam., sessile to ± constricted at base, or in ± dimpled warts, concolorous with thallus, margins thick, flattened or puckered, ± striate or wrinkled, pore gaping, prominent, 0.1-1.2 mm diam., exciple pale buff or whitish, lacerate-ragged, often obscuring disc, detached, producing a double-walled structure around disc, disc pale brown or pinkish to blackish or greyish. Ascospores colourless, long-ellipsoid or with tapering ends, 8-12 transverse septa, 2-5 longitudinal septa, (1-)2-4(-8) per ascus, 35-130 × 10-25 µm, straight or slightly curved.
Chemistry: Cortex K+ reddish. TLC nil.
Northern populations are sometimes parasitised by *Nectria byssophila (q.v.).
Substrate
Corticolous
Attribution
Fact sheet prepared by Melissa Hutchison (4 August 2022). Brief description, Distribution, Habitat and Features sections copied from Galloway (1985, 2007).
References and further reading
Galloway D.J. 1985: Flora of New Zealand: Lichens. Wellington: PD Hasselberg, Government Printer. 662 pp.
Galloway D.J. 2007: Flora of New Zealand: Lichens, including lichen-forming and lichenicolous fungi. 2nd edition. Lincoln, Manaaki Whenua Press. 2261 pp.