Thallus fruticose, caespitose, with complicately [sic] anastomosing basal parts, irregularly expanding, up to 20 mm wide, upper parts erect, moderately branched, more or less convolute, with rounded sinuses and lobes, terminal lobes 5-10 mm wide, upper side smooth, dull-shiny, underside more or less reticulately ridged and wrinkled with weak pseudocyphellae, margins dentate from the presence of short, partly bifurcate projections bearing pycnidia, marginal lobules at times present, colour at the base yellowish green-tan, in upper parts a rich chestnut brown; no soredia, isidia or cilia; only one apothecium seen, 12 mm in diameter, appearing terminally on a lobe which had grown together to form a cylinder in the upper part, under side of the apothecium strongly wrinkled, spores simple, ellipsoid [sic], 8-10 X 4-5 µm. Chemical reactions PD-, K-, C-, KC-, J-. Contains rangiformic and norrangiformic acids.
Named in honour of H. C. SIMMONS, the botanist of the Second Norwegian Arctic Expedition
Distribution: Greenland, Alaska, Canada
var. intermedia
Habitually intermediate between C. simmonsii var. simmonsii and C. andrejevii. The characters of the basal parts of var. simmonsii less pronounced, lobes imitating C.andrejevii, but colour, reticulation of under side, and tendency to irregularly dilatated lobes and formation of marginal lobules are in agreement with var. simmonsii.
Distribution: Siberia, Alaska, Canada, Greenland
var. lobulata
Lobes up to 30 mm wide, rotund, with the wrinkles on the underside radiating towards the margins, margins covered with lobules which sometimes develop into new lobes; apothecia not seen.
Distribution: Greenland
C. simmonsii is most closely related to C. andrejevii (Fig. 30). Their main distinguishing features are listed below:
C. simmonsii
C. andrejevii
Colour tan in basal parts, chestnut brown in upper parts.
Colour gray-white in basal parts, dark olive brown in upper parts.
Pycnidia on slightly longer, usually unbranched projections.
Marginal lobules common.
Marginal lobules not observed.
Underside strongly wrinkled.
Underside weakly wrinkled or pitted.
The position of C. simmonsii var. intermedia is subject to some doubt. Some of the specimens included in this variety come quite close to C. andrejevii. The problem can only be satisfactorily settled through studies of populations in the field. C. simmonsii s. lat. has a wide distribution in Siberia and northern North America. There is one group of localities in western Greenland-eastern Canada, another group in the Bering Sea-Bering Strait region, and one single locality in Jenisejsk. Since the areas in western arctic Canada and Siberia are poorly investigated, there is reason to believe that this species may turn up also in these parts. I am indebted to Mr. L. TIBELL in Uppsala for verifying chromatographically the presence of rangiformic and norrangiformic acids in this species. By the same method Mr. TIBELL failed to find norrangiformic acid in C. andrejevii although the species gives the crystals characteristic of norrangiformic acid in GE. This may indicate that norrangiformic acid is present in larger quantities in C. simmonsii than in C. andrejevii.