TYPE. UNITED STATES. Massachusetts, Bristol County, New Bedford, 1862, H. Willey s.n. (FH-Tuck, MICH, US).
Life form. Lichenized fungus.
Description. [Modified from Willey (1892) according to Hollinger 22567 specimen notes] Thallus crustose, thin, continuous, bluish gray or greenish. Photobiont chlorococcoid, micaeroid alga. Ascomata biatorine apothecia, minute, constricted at base; disk black, flat to strongly convex, +/- shiny; margin thin, soon excluded. Exciple absent; epithecium red-purple to somewhat brownish; hymenium bluish or violet, K+ intensifying; hypothecium red-purple to somewhat brownish, intensifying in K. Paraphyses conglutinate, well-branched, thin; tips not expanded or pigmented. Asci narrowly clavate, very faintly lecanora-type or at least with a K/I- canal penetrating all the way through the tip, 8-spored; ascospores hyaline, coiled in ascus, curved to sigmoid outside, 3-9-septate, 22-36 x 2-4 μm (Willey 1862), 17-35 x 2.5-3.5 μm (Hollinger specimen). Conidiomata pycnidia (not described); conidia 4-5 μm long.
Chemistry. Not reported.
Substrate and habitat. Corticolous and lignicolous on coniferous and hardwood trees and stumps in forests.
Distribution. Eastern North America west to Ozark highlands; in North Carolina found in the Blue Ridge and Coastal Plain ecoregions, expected throughout.
Literature
Willey, H. (1892). Enumeration of the lichens found in New Bedford, Massachusetts and its vicinity: From 1862-1892. Printed for the Author.