TYPE. TURKEY. Trabzon vilayet, Uzungél ~14 km SSE of Caykara, dense forest of Picea orientalis along dirt road ~3.5 km SE of Uzungél, 40°35’57" N, 40°19’14" E, ~1300 m elev., 28.VI.2001, C. Printzen 6114 (BG, holotype)
Life form. Lichenized fungus.
Description.Thallus consisting of punctiform soralia often coalescing to form a leprose, ± areolate crust, endophloedal in nonsorediate parts; soralia 0.1-0.3(-0.4) mm diam., plane to weaky convex; areoles in leprose thalli up to 1.4 mm diam., light green, rarely dark or olive green; soredia globular to + ellipsoid, 15-30 um diam., sometimes forming consoredia of up to 50 μm diam. Prothallus distinct, a white network of hyphae visible between and below the granules. Photobiont trebouxioid alga; cells, 4-8 μm diam. Ascomata biatorine apothecia, absent to frequent, round, to slightly deformed, mostly solitary, appressed to sessile with weakly constricted base, sometimes immersed among soralia, (0.25-)0.4-0.6(-1.3) mm diam.; disk grayish brown, flat to moderately convex, epurinose, matt to slightly glossy; margin mostly indistinct, rarely a beige, non-prominent rim in young apothecia. Exciple hyaline distally, rarely pale ochre or olive proximally, laterally 30-60 μm, basally 10-60(-85) μm, of radiating hyphae; hypothecium 40-100 μm thick, hyaline or pale ochre with patches of blue or purple pigment; subhymenium 40-75(-90) μm thick; hymenium (30-)40-50 μm high, hyaline to patchily pale olive, often with purple “granules”; epihymenium hyaline or as pale ochre to olive, 5-10 μm thick. Paraphyses simple or weakly branched, tips expanded. Asci 8-spored; ascospores hyaline, simple or rarely 1-septate, ellipsoid to bacilliform, (8.5-)12.0-15.0(-21.5) x (2.5-)3.4-3.7(-4.5) μm. Conidiomata not observed.
Chemistry. UV+ dull orange, K-, KC+ yellow orange, C+ yellow-orange, PD-; theophanic acid, asenome and pontica-unknown substance detected by TLC.
Substrate and habitat. Corticolous on conifers and hardwoods in forests.
Distribution. Europe, Turkey, eastern North America; in North Carolina found in Blue Ridge ecoregion.
Literature
Lendemer, J.C. & N. Noell. (2018) Delmarva Lichens: An illustrated manual. Memoirs of the Torrey Botanical Society28: 1-386.
Printzen, C. & T. Tønsberg (2003) Four new species and three new apothecial pigments of Biatora. Bibliotheca Lichenologica86: 133-145 (original description).