Peltigera malacea
Family
Peltigeraceae
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
Brief description
Characterised by the terricolous/muscicolous habit; its broad, very thick lobes, indistinct veins of the lower surface, forming a ±continuous greyish to blackish or brown-black, felty layer that projects at the margins as an erect, brownish fringe.
Distribution
South Island: Canterbury (Torlesse Range, Godley Valley, Murchison Valley), Otago (Matukituki Valley, Wanaka, W Hunter Valley, Bedford Valley, Earnslaw, Maungatua). Still rather poorly known and collected in New Zealand.
Known also from boreal and arctic zones, less common in temperate lowlands, rare or lacking in oceanic areas of North America, Europe and Asia . It is not known from Australia.
Habitat
In subalpine to high-alpine grassland and fellfield, among mosses and debris in damp sites, 300–2300 m.
Detailed description
Thallus rosette-forming to irregularly spreading, 2–5(–8) cm diam. Lobes broadly rounded 1–2(–3) cm wide and 4–6 cm long, and 1–1.5 mm thick. Margins entire, slightly thickened below, plane to wavy, inrolled, ±subascending, without soredia or phyllidia, often with a rim of erect, compact tomentum (×10 lens). Upper surface glabrous, coriaceous, matt or glossy, olive-brownish or greenish brown centrally, suffused dark red-brown towards margins, without soredia or phyllidia, undulate, shallowly wrinkled, here and there with longitudinal cracks or tears. Lower surface without veins, ±continuously felted-tomentose (rarely with a few scattered, white interstitial areas close to margins), pale creamish buff at margins (greyish white in exposed alpine forms) soon becoming greyish to brownish black or ±blackened centrally. Rhizines sparse, widely scattered, short, bushy-tufted, densely fasciculate, 1–3 mm long, black or brown-black to greyish. Apothecia not seen.
Chemistry: Gyrophoric acid, methyl gyrophorate, tenuiorin, zeorin, dolichorrhizin and several unidentified triterpenoids.
Substrate
Terricolous
Attribution
Fact sheet prepared by Marley Ford (3 September 2021). Brief description, Distribution, Habitat, and Features 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.