TYPE. UNITED STATES. Florida, Caloosa River, 1878, C.F. Austin s.n. (FH, holotype).
Life form. Lichenicolous fungus.
Description.Thallus absent; photobiont absent. Ascomata initially punctiform, perithecoid, erumpent, developing into lecideine apothecia, minute, 0.07-0.12 mm diam. (0.1-0.25 mm diam. per Diederich 2003), appressed; disk flat, brownish-black; margin thin, blackish, becoming excluded. Exciple brown, paler at base, pseudoparenchymatous, uniformly 10-20 μm; epihymenium light brown; hymenium hyaline, 45-55 μm; hypothecium brown (Fink 1935) or hyaline (Hafellner 1979). Paraphysoids sparse, septate, branched to anastomosing, ~1.5 μm thick; tips slightly expanded and pigmented. Asci bitunicate, slightly bulbous or clavate, tip thickened and broadly rounded, 38-50 x 15-20 μm, 8-spored, uniseriate; ascospores 2-celled, brownish to brown at maturity, thin-walled, without perispore, rounded at ends, one cell slightly longer (14-)15.4-18 x 6-7.2(-8) μm.
Chemistry. All ascomatal structures I-.
Host.Pertusaria spp.
Distribution. Neotropical and eastern North America, also reported from Eurasia [Korea; Kondratyuk et al. (2016) and Caucasus mountains (Urbanavichene et al. 2018)]; in North Carolina found in the Coastal Plain eocregion.
Literature
Fink, B. (1935) The Lichen Flora of the United States. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. 426 pp.
Hafellner, J. (1979) Karschia. Revision einer Sammelgattung an der Grenze von lichenisierten und nichlichenisierten Ascomyceten. Beiheft zur Nova Hedwigia62: 1-248.
Kondratyuk, S., L. Lőkös, S. Tschabanenko, M.H. Moniri, E. Farkas, X. Wang, S.-O. Oh & J.-S. Hur (2016) New and noteworthy lichen-forming and lichenicolous fungi: 5. Acta Botanica Hungarica58(3-4): 319-396.
Tuckerman, E. (1888) A synopsis of the North American lichens. Part. II. Comprising the Lecideacei, and (in part) the Graphidacei. New Bedford, Mass. 176 pp.
Urbanavichene, I.N. & G.P. Urbanavichus (2018) Contributions to the lichen flora of the Stavropol Territory (Central Caucasus, Russia). Novosti sistematiki nizshikh rastenii52(2): 417-434.