Pannaria delicata
Family
Pannariaceae
Flora category
Lichen – Native
Endemic taxon
No
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Structural class
Lichens - Squamulose
Current conservation status
2018 | Not Threatened | Qualifiers: SO
Brief description
A remarkable species that builds up thalline cushions by repeatedly producing new squamules on the older ones, which apparently die as they are overgrown. The squamules are very brittle and evidently function as propagules.
Distribution
North Island: Northland (Warawara, Waiwera), Auckland (Waitakere Ra., Piha Gorge), South Auckland (Moehau, Coromandel Peninsula, Pirongia, Moerangi, S of Turangi, Waipakihi River), Gisborne (Mt Hikurangi, Moanui Valley); Wellington (Gollans Valley). South Island: Nelson (near Rahu Saddle), Southland (Lake Thomson Fiordland).
Australia: Known also from Barrington Tops National Park in northern New South Wales.
Habitat
On bark of trees (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides, Dacrydium cupressinum, Lophozonia menziesii), shrubs (Coprosma propinqua) and tree-fern brush (where it is often common), rarely also on shaded rock outcrops in lowland forest and subalpine shrubland, 50–970 m.
Detailed description
Thallus squamulose, forming irregular caespitose clumps up to 5 cm diam., corticolous. Squamules greyish buff when dry, dark-blue when moist, delicately incised, often sinuous, thin (to 100 μm thick). Margins microphylline, giving thallus a lace-like appearance. Apothecia rather rare, red-brown to dark-brown, often deformed and producing several small, new apothecia within original structure, forming a multi-apothecium, 0.1–1(–1.5) mm diam., at first with only a thin proper margin, paler than disc, at maturity invested with a microphylline thalline margin concolorous with thallus. Epithecium red-brown, 10–12.5 μm thick. Hymenium colourless, to 100 μm tall. Ascospores broadly ellipsoidal to subglobose, apiculate, 12.5–15 × 10–12.5 μm, wall to 2.5 μm thick, apiculi to 2 μm long. Pycnidia not seen.
Chemistry: TLC−, all reactions negative.
Similar taxa
It is distinguished from Pannaria crenulata, which is Pd + yellow-orange (containing argopsin) and has more finely divided, more coralloid, gnarled, and bluer squamules.
Substrate
Corticolous and saxicolous.
Attribution
Fact sheet prepared by Marley Ford (17 May 2021). Information in the 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.