TYPE. UNITED STATES. New York, Schenectady Co., Schenectady, corticola, E. Tuckerman 116 (H-NYL 23733, holotype; FH-TUCK, US, isotypes).
Description.Life form: lichenized fungus.
[modified from Dibben 1980] Thallus gray, greenish gray or grayish white, epiphloedal, thin to moderately thick; margin +/- entire and unzoned. Surface smooth becoming rugose-plicate (never tuberculate), dull, pruinose, predominantly continuous to somewhat rimose or poorly areolate; areoles (0.4-)1.0(-2.0) mm diam. Vegetative diaspores absent. Fertile warts lecanorate and +/- concolorous or paler than thallus, numerous and crowded, often sunken in the thallus, single or fused 2-3(-4), (0.3-)0.7(-1.2) mm diam. Discs black or brown, well sunken, and generally white-pruinose, (0.1-) 0.3 (-0.6) mm wide, often partially covered by remnants of the veil, the verrucal margin rarely crenulate or deformed, usually eroded or radially lacerate, exposing the medulla. Ascomata pertusarioid apothecia, 1 per wart, (0.38-)0.64(-0.96) mm diam. Hymenium hyaline to white or yellow-brown; hypothecium pale or brown; epithecium pallid, brown or black, K+ violet. Asci clavate, (42-)64(-86) x (142-)206(-286) μm, only occasionally centrally constricted. Ascospores (1-)2 per ascus, uniseriate and always longitudinal, oval to ellipsoid, often irregular in shape, sometimes centrally constricted or curved, (28-)48(-69) x (54-)95(-168) μm, wall and lumen often K+ violet. Spore wall smooth, unzoned and untrimmed, often irregular, (5-)10(-19) μm thick. Pycnidia present; conidia 1-1.5 x 8-11 μm.
Chemistry. Spot tests negative; no substances detected by TLC.
Substrate and habitat. Corticolous hardwood trees, rarely on conifers.
Distribution. Eastern North America; in North Carolina found in the Piedmont ecoregion.
Literature
Dibben, M.J. (1980) The Chemosystematics of the Lichen Genus Pertusaria in North America North of Mexico. Publications in Biology and Geology No. 5, Milwaukee Public Museum Press, Milwaukee. 162 pp.
Hue, A. 1891. Lichenes exoticos. Nouvelles Archives du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle. ser. 3, 3:33-192 (original description by Nylander).