LICHENS AND LICHEN. PARASITES

138 B.A.N.Z. ANTARCTIC 13ESEABCH EXPEDITION
the loosely woven medullary hyphae ; chondroid axis of flexuous hyphae about 4p in diameter with
highly gelified walls, generally longitudinal, spreading above to form the base of the apothecium ;
cephalodia minute, hemispheric, formed of a palisade of Stigvnemai covered by a thin, brown cortex.
Apothecia up to 1 mm. in diameter, terminal, disc black; amphithecial cortex a palisade of
hyphae formed from the chondroid axis without algal cells, about 50p thick; no true paratheciunl
differentiated; hypothecium about 50p thick, of very slender, densely woven, deeply staining
hyphae; thecium about 6OP tall; paraphyses slender, dichotomously branched above the asci,
ultimate branches moniliform, dark brown, cutting off spherical cells about 3p in diameter, forming
a deep brown epithecium about 18p thick ; asci cylindric clavate, 50 X &9c( protoplast truncate
above ; ascospores fastigiate, acicular, 30-35 X 3~4 (still in ascus and perhaps somewhat immature),
about 3-septate.
The above description is based on two collections from Dunedin and two from Otago, New
Zealand. Our material from Macquarie ~sland is somewhat fragmentary but agrees well.
Macquarie Island : Wind Desert, H. Hamilton, A.A.E. 107 ; highland, B.A.N.Z.A.R.E. B534-5.
STEREOCAULON SP.
Primary thallus not seen. Podetia 3 cm. tall, polychotomous near the base, decorticate with
occasional verruciform phyllocladia below, then very densely ramuIose with phyllocladia and
cephalodia in the central portion, above corticate with scattered phyllocladia much reduced above ;
phyllocladia terete, simple, dichotomous or more often polychotomous, 13 mm. long, verruculose
often with annular fractures, tips white pruinose; cephalodia stalked, spherical to cerebriform,
crowded; cortex about 55p thick, fastigiate, gelified, in section, outer 7-lop decomposed
and hyaline ; algae protococcoid in colonies of variable size and shape, scattered quite irregularly
through the medulla and extending up the cracks in the cortex, cells 3-5c( in diameter ; medulla
35-55p thick, very loosely woven, of slender hyaline hyphae about 3c( in diameter ; chondroid axis of
slender, densely woven longitudinal hyphae.
Apothecia lateral near the tips of branches ; pseudolecanorine, about 1 mm. in diameter ; amphithecial
cortex 75p thick, fastigiate, coiitinuous with the thalline cortex, medulla thinning upward
with occasiona1 algal colonies to the level of the hypothecium; chondroid axis less densely woven
and spreading under the hypothecium ; parathecium not differentiated ; hypothecium of densely
woven, very slender, deeply staining hyphae about 90c( thick in the centre, thinning to 50p or less
at the margin; thecium 65p tall; paraphyses slender, once or twice dichotomous above the asci; tips
clavate, brownish, cutting off spherical cells 34p in diameter ; asci about 55 X 11-12c(, tip thickened,
protoplast truncate when young, thin-walled and protoplast practically filling the mature ascus ;
ascospores fascicled, somewhat twisted, acicular 20 X 2.0-2-5p, one end rounded and obtuse, the
other end acute, 4-celled, hyaline.
Two fragments of the middle portions of podetia from Macquarie Island agree very closely with
a small member of the 8. ramulosz~m group from Tasmania, Gunn growing with Sticta "glabra" in
the Taylor herbarium. Only a study of all the types of this group can settle the nomenclature as
several entities are rather imperfectly described. The nature of the cephaIodia1 algae which has
been used to separate species has been shown by Johnson, G.T., Ann. Mo. Bot. Gard., 25, 729-768 ;
pl. 66-68 ; 1938 to be useless for separating species as very frequently two cephalodia from the same
podetium contain different genera of Myxophyceae, and occasionally two genera occur in the same
cephalodium. Our material is quite probably a new species, but I hesitate to describe it from four
somewhat fragmentary plants, one of which bears a single apothecium.
Tasmania : Gunn (fertile).
Macquarie Island : Wind Desert, top of hills, H. Hamilton A.A.E. 108.