Austropeltum glareosum
Common name
gritty peat pelt lichen
Family
Sphaerophoraceae
Flora category
Lichen – Native
Endemic taxon
No
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Structural class
Lichens - Squamulose
Current conservation status
2018 | Threatened – Nationally Vulnerable | Qualifiers: DP, TO
Brief description
Characterised by the conspicuous olive-brown, rather leathery, squamulose thallus bearing marginal, lecideine, black, ±glomerulate apothecia. Characteristic anatomical features include the thick, heavily gelatinised and gradually decaying upper cortex; the pseudopodetiate apothecia with a boundary tissue and secondarily divided hymenium and subhymenium; and pycnidia with a thalline cortex that breaks up into a channel when the filiform conidia are released.
Distribution
South Island: Nelson (near Fenella Hut Cobb Valley, Denniston & Stockton Plateaux, Mt Rochfort, Mt Augusta), Southland (West Dome).
Recently discovered in Arthur’s Pass National Park (Hutchison 2020).
Also in Tasmania.
Habitat
In open, exposed often inundated quartzite sand or peaty soils, 750–900 m, associating with species of Cladia and Cladonia, Neophyllis melacarpa, Pycnothelia caliginosa, Parasiphula foliacea, P. fragilis, P. jamesii and Siphula decumbens. A prominent element in the vegetation on these exposed, windswept tablelands, offering considerable resistance to surface soil erosion.
Detailed description
Thallus squamulose to subfoliose, spreading in patches 5–10 cm diam., terricolous. Lobes 4–12(–15) mm diam., dispersed to contiguous and imbricate, flat, peltate and ±convex, or shell-like with raised margins, attached by a central holdfast and additional tufts of rhizohyphae. Upper surface olive-brown to blackened, dull or glossy, smooth, undulate to unevenly wrinkled, becoming fissured with age. Lower surface brownish, naked or occasionally indistinctly veined. Apothecia marginal, shortly stalked, black, dull or glossy, up to 5 mm diam., globose at first, becoming convoluted and glomerulate with age. Hymenium 50–80 μm tall with a grey-black to blackish brown epithecium. Subhymenium dark-brown in upper part, 450–480 μm tall when young, to 1600–2000 μm and deeply divided in stalks when mature; boundary tissue ranging from 45 to 160 μm thick. Ascospores fusiform, (9–)11–16 × 3– 4.5 μm. Pycnidia marginal, black, ±globose to 0.5 mm diam. Conidia filiform, curved, 32–62 × 0.6 μm.
Chemistry: TLC−, all reactions negative.
Threats
The sandstone pavements it occupies on the Denniston and Stockton Plateaux are threatened by coal mining.
Substrate
Terricolous (ground)
Attribution
Fact sheet prepared by Melissa Hutchison (25 August 2021). Brief description, Distribution, Habitat, Features, and Similar taxa sections copied from Galloway (2007).
References and further reading
Galloway D.J. 2007: Flora of New Zealand: Lichens, including lichen-forming and lichenicolous fungi. 2nd edition. Lincoln, Manaaki Whenua Press. 2261 pp.
Henssen H., Doring A. and Kantvilas G. 1992: Austropeltum glareosum gen. et sp. nov., a new lichen from Mountain Plateaux in Tasmania and New Zealand. Bot. Acta 105: 457-467.
Hutchison M. 2020: Observation of Austropeltum glareosum on the iNaturalist website. https://inaturalist.nz/observations/48323738.