Pseudocyphellaria haywardiorum
Common name
Dice lichen
Family
Peltigeraceae
Flora category
Lichen – Native
Endemic taxon
No
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Structural class
Lichens - Foliose
Current conservation status
2018 | At Risk – Naturally Uncommon | Qualifiers: DP, SO?, Sp
Brief description
Characterised by rounded to irregularly laciniate lobes; coarsely granular to pseudoisidiate, laminal and marginal soralia; a conspicuously punctate-impressed upper surface; a white medulla; a cyanobacterial photobiont; a densely and evenly red-brown to brown-black tomentose lower surface with scattered, prominent, well-delimited white pseudocyphellae; and a two-hopane chemistry.
Distribution
North Island: Northland (Radar Bush, Bay of Islands, Poor Knights Islands, Rakitu Island) to Auckland (Rangitoto Island).
Known also from NE Australia and Norfolk Island.
Habitat
An epiphyte of bark and twigs of trees and shrubs (Cordyline australis, Kunzea robusta, Metrosideros excelsa) in northern coastal forest and grassland.
Detailed description
Thallus orbicular, 3–7(–12) cm diam., corticolous, loosely to firmly attached from margins to centre, or with margins ascending. Lobes rounded to irregularly laciniate, 2–10(–20) mm wide, 4–25 mm long, discrete, contiguous or ±complex-imbricate and clustered. Margins sinuous, ascending, very irregular, delicately to coarsely crenate-lacerate, slightly thickened below, or with clustered soredia and ±grey-white, erose below. Upper surface dark grey-blue or glaucous-blue to blue-black, darker at lobe apices or with a livid brownish tinge when moist, olivaceous-brownish to glaucous-yellow or isabelline, dark greyish at margins when dry, plane or shallowly undulate, ±wrinkled-faveolate at apices, elsewhere conspicuously punctate-impressed, here and there with minute, pale-buff papillae (×10 lens), matt, smooth or appearing slightly arachnoid in parts, rather coriaceous when dry, soft and flabby when moist, sorediate, maculate, without phyllidia or pseudocyphellae. Maculae minute, scattered, irregular, whitish buff, most noticeable and in reticulate patterns towards lobe apices, occasionally more extensive photobiont-free patches centrally. Soredia coarsely granular to crowded-pseudoisidiate (×10 lens), scattered in efflorescent clusters, 0.5 mm diam., often dense and spreading, delimited in round to irregular laminal soralia, or in ± sinuous, linear, marginal soralia, or coalescing and forming broad areas of sorediate to pseudoisidiate crust, soredia dark brownish blue, glaucous greyish often eroding white. Medulla white. Photobiont cyanobacterial. Lower surface bullate to irregularly undulate-wrinkled, pale-buff or brownish and ±glabrous in a narrow, marginal zone, elsewhere evenly and often densely tomentose, red-brown to brown-black, tomentum short and velvety near margins, long and woolly centrally. Pseudocyphellae white, conspicuous, well-delimited from tomentum, common centrally, rare marginally, round to irregular, 0.1–2 mm diam., with a raised, pale-buff, glabrous margin, decorticate area concave to convex, granular. Apothecia rare or absent, marginal and laminal, solitary or in groups (2–7), sessile, to supedicellate, rounded, irregular or ±distorted through mutual pressure, (0.1–)0.5–2.5(–3) mm diam., concave at first, becoming plane to convex at maturity, disc pale-yellow or orange-brown to dark red-brown, glossy at first, then matt and slightly roughened with age, epruinose, exciple pale-buff to brownish, translucent when moist, finely to coarsely scabrid-verrucose. Ascospores fusiform-ellipsoidal, apices pointed, yellow-brown, 1-septate, unthickened (27.5–)30–32(–34) × 6–7 μm.
Chemistry: 7β-acetoxyhopan-22-ol, hopane-7β,22-diol (tr.), hopane-15α,22-diol.
Substrate
Corticolous
Attribution
Fact sheet prepared by Marley Ford (5 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.