SPECIMEN EXAMINED: Auckland: Waitemata City, Waitakere Ranges, Swanson, University Hut, on decorticated wood of Leptospermum sp., Samuels (82-257) et al., 24 Aug. 1982 (PDD 44421).

Stromata solitary and scattered, unbranched or dichotomously branched, 5-7 cm long; fertile portion terminal, 2-7 cm long, elliptical in section, 5 x 2 mm, tip round; surface black, slightly tuberculate from perithecial elevations. Perithecia 200-500 µm diam., almost completely immersed with only apex free, each opening through a minute papilla. Stipe sharply delimited from fertile portion, 2-3 mm diam., brown, wrinkled; glabrous above, with matted brown hyphae toward the base. Internal tissue of stroma solid, white. Asci 150-190 µm total length x 5-7 µm, sporiferous portion 70-105 µm, cylindrical, apical ring J+, wedge-shaped, 2 µm wide x gum high, 8-spored, ascospores uniseriate with overlapping ends. Ascospores (10-)11-13 x (4.0-)4.5-5.0 µm, inequilateral, ellipitical in top view; transparent brown; slit full-length, straight, parallel to long axis of ascospore.
CHARACTERISTICS IN CULTURE: Colonies grown 4 weeks at 20°C diffuse daylight on OA 8 cm diam.; mycelium white, appressed and dense. Stromata arising throughout the colony, barraging, olivaceous with white tips, 1-2 cm x 1 mm, tips conidiogenous. Conidiophores formed in a loose, c. 70 µm deep palisade, cylindrical, smooth, irregularly branched, c. 3 µm wide but with many intercalary swellings to 5 µm wide; conidiogenous loci terminal, with a refractive, frilled, 1 µm wide scar remaining after conidial dehiscence. Conidia (5-)7-12(-15) x 2.0-2.5(-3.0) µm, nearly oblong with tip broad to subacute and base, colourless, smooth; each with a protuberant, flat, refractive, filled, 1 µm wide abscission scar.

NORTH ISLAND: Auckland, known from a single collection.

HABITAT: On decorticated wood of Leptospermum.

Only one specimen is tentatively referred to this species. Our specimen is close to X. hypoxylon, but has ostiolar papillae. The culture derived from this collection is similar to those formed by X. hypoxylon. Additional collections might show this New Zealand collection to be only a variant of X. hypoxylon.