Pannaria immixta
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 variable species, characterised by the corticolous habit; the blue-grey, squamulose thallus; and the pale, orange-brown, gyrose-etched apothecial discs.
Distribution
North Island: Northland (Warawara Ranges, Waipoua, Herekino Forest, Little Barrier Island, Great Barrier Island), Auckland (Rangitoto Island, Hunua Range), South Auckland (Mt Moehau Coromandel Peninsula, Great Mercury Island, Thames, Te Aroha, Mamaku), Gisborne (Lake Waikaremoana), Wellington (Kapiti Island, Tararua Ranges, Kaitoke, Otari Hill, York Bay). South Island: Nelson (Lake Rotoroa), Westland (Punakaiki, Waiatoto River), Marlborough (Mt Stokes, d’Urville Island), Canterbury (Mt Peel), Otago (Trotter’s Gorge, Swampy Hill Dunedin, Leith Saddle, Morrison’s Creek), Southland (Cleddau Valley Milford Sound, Dusky Sound, Rowallan Burn, Longwood Range, Bluff Hill). Stewart Island: (Paterson Inlet, Islet Cove, Port Pegasus). Auckland Island: (Meggs Hill).
Known also from Australia.
Habitat
Very widely distributed on rocks, bark, tree-fern brush (Cyathea medullaris), old burned stumps, on leaves, and among mosses in both shaded and well-lit habitats in predominantly lowland areas of high humidity, reaching into subalpine grassland and alpine fellfield, s.l. to 2000 m, both E and W of the Main Divide.
Detailed description
Thallus squamulose, orbicular to spreading, to 10 cm diam., corticolous, muscicolous or saxicolous, with a ± conspicuous, marginal black prothallus. Squamules closely attached, entire, well-developed at margins becoming areolate-cracked centrally, ± rosette-shaped with crenate margins, to highly dissected to sublobulate, imbricate and ± loosely attached, clustered on a dense, black prothallus, occasionally ascending or ± coralloid. Upper surface pale greyish-blue to dark grey or brownish-black, smooth or slightly wavy, without isidia or soredia. Apothecia frequent, sessile, to 1.5 mm diam., solitary or confluent, disc plane, yellowish to red-brown or blackened, ± waxy, distinctly gyrose-etched, dark or ± perforate centrally, often with thalline lobules, proper margin pale, thin, thalline margin crenulate, incised or sublobulate, inflexed. Ascospores ellipsoid-ovoid 10-16 × 4-6(-9) µm wall 0.5-2 µm thick.
Chemistry: TLC−, all reactions negative.
Similar taxa
Forms without such gyrose-etched discs are superficially very similar to Fuscopannaria crustata, which has more rugulose ascospores and an amyloid apical apparatus in the ascus.
Substrate
Corticolous, saxicolous
Attribution
Fact sheet prepared by Marley Ford (5 July 2021). Information in the Brief description, Distribution, Habitat, Features, and Similar taxa 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.