Keys, descriptions and distributional data are given for the New Zealand species of Calicium, Sphinctrina, Contocybe, Cyphelium, Pyrgillus and Sphaerophorus. Nine new taxa are described in Calicium, Coniocybe, Pyrgillus and Sphaerophorus., together with a number of new combinations and new records. The monotypic genus Calycidium is reduced to synonymy with Sphaerophorus

This is the first of a series of papers on the lichens of New Zealand and adjacent islands, at present based largely on collections from the South Island. Because of the present paucity of North Island material discussions of geographical distribution within New Zealand have not usually been given.

The first lichen collections from New Zealand were made on Cook's voyages, but these were apparently specimens picked up more or less accidentally; one species was described by Swartz in 1781 and two others collected by the Forsters were described by Acharius in 1810. The first large collection of New Zealand lichens was reported on by Richard in 1832, and between then and the present time about 190 papers and books dealing with New Zealand specimens have appeared. Among these are monographs dealing with all groups by Babington in Hooker (1855), Hooker (1867), Nylander (1888), Müller (1894), Hellbom (1896) and Zahlbruckner (1941), while series of papers have been published by Lindsay, Stirton and Knight in particular between 1860 and 1890. Although a number of papers published in the last 50 years have included New Zealand species, there has been but little activity in this field in the country with the result that almost all genera are in need of revision. Such revision is made difficult by the fact that no type specimens except Knight's and a handful of Stirton's remain in the country. Important reference collections of New Zealand lichens are at Kew, the British Museum, Paris, Helsinki and Vienna, while type specimens are located in nearly twenty places and some have been destroyed. However, cotypes of a number of species collected by Colenso are in the Dominion Museum, Wellington, and cotypes of nearly all the species described by Zahlbruckner (1941) are in the Herbarium of Botany Division, D. S. I. R., and in the Thomson collection at Otago.

In this paper and succeeding ones reference is made to specimens in the following collections:-

CHR: Specimens (usually unnumbered but sometimes carrying several letters and numbers) in the Botany Division Herbarium, D. S. I. R., Christchurch, collected by Dr. H. H. Allan and other members of the Division, principally V. D. Zotov, L. B. Moore, E. Chamberlain and H. Attwood. Duplicates of species seen by Zahlbruckner usually carry a number prefixed by Z, A, or ZA, and duplicates sent to other lichenologists also have identifying letters.

Mr: Mr. W. Martin, Dunedin.

T. J. S. Thomson collection in the Botany Department, University of Otago, and also specimens in the Botany Division Herbarium.

WELT Dominion Museum Herbarium, Wellington; comprising mainly collections by Knight and Colenso.

Sc. D. Scott, University of Otago.

Others are named in full, and my own specimens carry a number only. The collector's name is given where not otherwise obvious I have not quoted all relevant specimens of common species, particularly in the Knight collection, since the latter do not usually carry locality or date. It is thought that most of Knight's New Zealand specimens were collected near Auckland or Wellington by Knight himself, but a fair number of specimens in this collection seem to belong to Australian or tropical species.

Descriptions of species are based on my own examination of the specimens cited, unless otherwise stated. In most cases the literature descriptions are very inadequate by modern standards or are inaccessible, and I have felt obliged to give more extended ones. Many species have an extensive synonymy which I am not in a position to examine—details will mostly be found in the appropriate volumes of Zahlbruckner's “Catalogus Lichenum Universalis”, although this has some mistakes—consequently I have listed only the original citations together with references dealing with New Zealand material of the species concerned. Probably several of the earlier identifications are incorrect but I have not been able to check them.

The Coniocarpineae includes rather a heterogenous collection of genera, comprising those species where the asci disintegrate early, leaving the spores to ripen in a loose mass or mazedium. The spores are mostly rather small, dark and simple. A number of the species have little or no thallus, are parasitic on other lichens or are doubtfully in association with the algae and are often classed as fungi proper. Two of the New Zealand Calicium species are not certainly lichens but I have not thought it convenient to place them in fungus genera.

The genera are usually distributed among three families, the Caliciaceae, comprising crustose species with small stalked apothecia, the Cypheliaceae crustose species with sessile apothecia, and the Sphaerophoraceae foliose or fruticose species. Most of the genera are best developed in the Northern Hemisphere and the Tropics, but one monotypic genus is confined to the Southern Hemisphere (Madagascar) and another—Sphaerophorus— is most prominent there. Judging by present collections the crustose genera are relatively poorly represented both in species and numbers in Australasia and presumably are northern in origin.