Chrysothrix candelaris

Description:

Walking through a forest of coastal ti-tree I noticed that, very occasionally, some trunks had what looked like iridescent glowing yellow paint sprayed on. As it was not possible that vandals had been there I took some shots hoping to get structural detail in the close-ups. Almost! It's possible to see tiny balls within the yellow. A microscope would have been great.

Habitat:

Growing on 'Coastal ti-tree' (Leptospermum laevigatum).

Notes:

"..Thallus crustose-leprose, bright yellow, rarely with a faint greenish or orange tinge, unstratified or, in thick specimens, sometimes indistinctly stratified, adnate, diffuse or rarely delimited, irregularly spreading, sometimes forming scattered granules but usually ±continuous. Soredia fine, with individual granules convex to spherical, 12–40 μm wide, becoming agglomerated and forming granules to 200 μm wide. Medulla usually not apparent, in thick thalli sometimes indistinct and yellow. Photobiont cells ±globose, 15–18 μm wide, solitary or clustered. Apothecia not seen in Australian specimens [Reported to be rare, to 0.5 mm wide, ±superficial, rounded or distorted-angular; disc pale orange, often yellow-pruinose, plane to slightly convex; margin thin, ecorticate, soon becoming excluded; hymenium colourless, to 50 μm thick; epihymenium colourless, to 18 μm thick, composed of a reticulate layer of richly branched paraphyses; hypothecium colourless, poorly developed; ascospores mostly 3-septate, narrowly ellipsoidal, straight or curved, 9–14 × 3 μm (Tønsberg, 2004)] CHEMISTRY: Thallus K+ orange, C–, KC–, P+ orange, UV+ dull orange; containing calycin. This cosmopolitan species occurs on bark, wood and rock in dry and shaded microhabitats in Qld, Vic. and Tas..... " http://www.anbg.gov.au/abrs/lichenlist/V...