Fuscoderma pyxinoides
Family
Pannariaceae
Flora category
Lichen – Native
Endemic taxon
No
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Structural class
Lichens - Foliose
Current conservation status
2018 | Data Deficient | Qualifiers: SO
Distribution
North Island: South Auckland (Mt Pirongia). South Island: Canterbury (Hanmer State Forest), Otago (Rees Valley), Southland (West Dome). Still rather poorly known and collected.
Recorded once from Chile (Tierra del Fuego).
Habitat
On bark of both introduced (Larix) and native trees (Fuscospora cliffortioides), in moderate shade in habitats of high humidity, and among mosses on shaded rocks.
It is often found on mountain beech at the margins of forest where it can form quite dense, spreading colonies on old, furrowed trunks. The colour of the thallus closely resembles that of the bark, rendering the lichen often difficult to detect.
Detailed description
Thallus subfoliose forming flat, smooth appressed rosettes on smooth bark, irregularly spreading on rough bark, to 1.5 cm diam. Lobes flat, discrete, to 1 mm wide and 200 μm thick, similar in structure to those in F. applanatum, enlarged apically and there with ascending margins. Upper surface bright malachite-green to blue-green when moist, fading to creamish buff when dry, except for delimited marginal isidioid blue-grey soralia. Prothallus poorly developed, of thin whitish rhizohyphae. Apothecia to 1 mm diam., sessile, flat, orange-brown with paler, distinct proper exciple. Hymenium colourless to 100 μm tall. Ascospores apiculate, ellipsoidal, 8–10 × 4.5 μm. Pycnidia not seen.
Chemistry: TLC−, all reactions negative.
Similar taxa
Fuscoderma pyxinoides is a characteristic species that has a superficial resemblance to a species of Pyxine (its appressed, somewhat elongated lobes with marginal, delimited soralia). In this it differs markedly from other species of Fuscoderma, but it shares the very characteristic apothecia with the cyanobiont penetrating into the lower parts of the subhymenium, and lacking any amyloid structures in the ascus apex. In the material examined the apothecia are rare and sporadic and the species is more commonly encountered sterile.
Substrate
Corticolous
Attribution
Fact sheet prepared by Marley Ford (5 January 2022). 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.