Pyrenula moniliformis was originally described as a species Verrucaria (V. moniliformis Knight) by Charles Knight (c. 1808 – 3 September 1891) who was a Aotearoa | New Zealand based doctor, public servant and lichenologist. Knight was one of the few Aotearoa | New Zealand residents of his time who took an interest in, collected and described lichenized mycobiota. Pyrenula moniliformis (as Verrucaria moniliformis) was one of his discoveries, which he described in 1860 but as was his wont, did not state where he collected it from, using rather a generic ‘New Zealand’ to distinguish his new species from those taxa he described from overseas. Thus those working with his names have had to ‘guess’ where he collected from, and usually this is done by the places he was known to be resident in at the approximate time he collected and / or described his species. In the case of Pyrenula moniliformis people have assumed his specimens came from ‘Auckland’ because he was resident there in 1860. The other issue with Pyrenula moniliformis is that it is only known from the type collection, Charles Knight 319, held in the Natural History Museum Herbarium (BM) London. No one has knowingly collected it since Knight described it, and the species itself has a number of characters that make its current placement in Pyrenula (at least in the eyes of some lichen specialists) uncertain. Clearly to understand this species better finding further specimens is essential but where to look?

The answer came by accident. In a study of lichen diversity in permanently monitored vegetation plots within the Auckland Council Region an innocuous lichen collection from Jagger’s Bush above Motions Creek made a few years ago by Unitec Research Associate Andrew Marshall (Marshy) turned out to be Pyrenula moniliformis! It transpires that lichens answering the now rather dated description of Knight’s are found in a number of places in northern Te Ika a Maui | North Island and on the Chatham Islands but none of these, except Marshy’s specimen are a perfect match for the type specimen. Marshy now recognises c.3-4 potentially new species allied to P. moniliformis mostly because they have ascospores with 8 locules and pointed ends but only one lichen, Marshy’s specimen from Jagger’s Bush matches the type. As such Marshy and I set off on 11 March 2025 to visit Jagger’s Bush to see if we could get images of Pyrenula moniliformis for a revision of the P. moniliformis complex. Usually finding a lichen can be hard work, both in terms of finding the exact site and habitat but also because one has to do microscopic work to work out the exact identity. luckily Pyrenula moniliformis has distinctive mammiliform (nipple-like) ascomata – no other Aotearoa | New Zealand Pyrenula so far has ascomata with this morphology. The lichen was found to be locally present on the trunks of mahoe (Melicytus ramiflorus subsp. ramiflorus, Violaceae), where it was well marked by being sparingly fertile, yet showing the distinctive mammiliform ascomata. This documentation and in effect formal rediscovery (as prior to that the species has been rediscovered in the UNITEC herbarium) took 10 minutes of brisk walking in a Auckland urban park, complete with an audience of perplexed workers doing track maintenance and undoubtedly wondering why two blokes were pouring over tree trunks and babbling away about nipples. So, we now have one confirmed wild site of a lichen described 165 years ago! Based on its appearance I suspect we have all been overlooking it, and I will now be looking very hard at mahoe trunks. Still, it may be uncommon time will tell. In the interim a nice lunch time jaunt to a local park took on an extra gloss with the rediscovery and images. It was a very happy and animated drive back to work people can be assured.