Type. UNITED STATES. North Carolina. Great Smoky Mountians, Kephart Mountain on trunk of Abiesfraseri, 1810 m elev., 1939, G. Degelius s.n. (hb. Degelius, holotype).
Description. Life form: lichenized fungus.
Thallus crustose, epiphloedal, corticate, white to pale gray, continuous, smooth to verruculose. Vegetative diaspores absent. Photobiont chlorococcoid alga. Ascomata lecanorine apothecia, sessile, 0.6-0.8 mm diam.; disk dark red-brown, epruinose, flat to convex; thalline margin (amphithecium) white, irregular, discontinuous, often reduced to few whitish granules. Amphithecium with large (up to 100 µm) calcium oxalate crystals; epihymenium yellow-brown, with large crystals, PD+ orange-red; hymenium hyaline, 60-90 µm high; paraphyses weakly branched and anastomosing, 2-3 µm thick, tips slightly swollen; hypothecium hyaline, 20-40 µm high. Asci 8-spored, clavate, very thin-walled; ascospores simple, hyaline, broadly ellipsoid, (12-)14-20 × (6-)8-12(-15) µm.
Substrate and Habitat. Corticolous on coniferous and hardwood trees in humid, montane forests.
Distribution. Europe, Asia, North America; in North Carolina found in the Blue Ridge ecoregion.
Literature
Degelius, G.N. (1941) Contributions to the Lichen flora of North America I. The lichen flora of the Great Smokey Mountains. Arkiv för Botanik 30A, Nr. 3: 1-80 (original description).
Driscoll, K.E., S.R. Clayden & R.C. Harris. (2016) Lecanora insignis (Lecanoraceae) and its lichenicolous fungi in North America, including a new species of Skyttea (Helotiales). The Bryologist119(1): 39-51.
Nimis P.L. (2023). ITALIC - The Information System on Italian Lichens. Version 7.0. University of Trieste, Dept. of Biology, (https://dryades.units.it/italic), accessed on 2023-02-10.
Upreti, D.K. (1997) Notes on corticolous, K+ yellow species of Lecanora in India. Feddes Repertorium108: 185-203.