TYPE. “Habitat in America meridionali, ad corticem Bonplandiae trifoliatae (Wild.)” (Fée 1825, tab. 25, holotype).
Life form. Lichenized fungus.
Description. [modified from Aptroot et al. (2014)] Thallus crustose, corticate, slightly shiny, gray, thick, with irregular and confluent warts ~0.1 mm diam., and filled with hyaline crystals; prothallus black. Vegetative diaspores absent. Photobiont trentepohlioid alga. Ascomata immersed to slightly emergent, round to angular, 0.2-0.4 mm diam.; disk concave, dark gray to black, epruinose; margin slightly raised above, gray, often warty and irregular, ~0.2 mm wide. Exciple hyaline, with tiny hyaline crystals and photobiont cells. Hypothecium black, 45-75 μm thick, with large hyaline crystals, extending as a thick (to ~20 μm) parathecium between hymenium and exciple. Epihymenium hyaline to pale brown, without crystals. Hymenium yellowish, clear; paraphyses 1.0-1.5 μm thick. Asci cylindrical, 50-58 x 9-12 μm, 8-spored; ascospores hyaline, clavate-fusiform, 3-septate, 15-18 x 4-5 μm, ends pointed, second lumen from above bulging. Conidiomata not seen.
Chemistry. Spot tests negative; no substances detected by TLC.
Substrate and habitat. Corticolous on smooth-barked trees in coastal forests.
Distribution. Neotropical; in North Carolina found in the Coastal Plain ecoregion.
Literature
Aptroot, A., A.A. Menezes, A.B. Xavier-Leite, V.M. dos Santos, M.M.E. Alves & M.E. da S. Cáceres (2014). Revision of the corticolous Mazosia species, with a key to Mazosia species with 3-septate ascospores. The Lichenologist46(4): 563–572.
Fée, A.L.A. (1825) Essai sur les cryptogames des écorces exotiques officinales. 180 pp. (original description as Urceolaria viridescens).