Lynge B. 1937. Lichens from West Greenland collected chiefly by Th. M. Fries. Meddelelser Om Gronland. 118: 1-225.
Thallus thin or very thin, granulose, granules diam. 0.1-0.13 mm, (almost flexible X 32) subcoralloides, whitish-gray.
Apothecia numerous, minute, diam. 0.3 mm rarely surpassing that (up to 0.4 mm), substipitate, disc black (even wet), scabrous, plane for a long time, then depressed convex, margin concolourous with and surrounding disc, thick, almost disappearing. Hypothecium moderately dark grayish-brown, exciple hypothecium almost concolourous or darkly coloured. Hymenium very tall, up to 100-110 µ, greenish-blue or greenish-brown. Paraphyses easily free, branched here and there, slightly stronger, c. 2 µ thick, apex not thickened. Asci very numerous, subcylindrical, up to 100 µ long, 10-12 µ thick, ascus membrane thin in apex. Spores 8, uniseriate, pachydermatous, subglobose, diam. 10-12 µ, or very slightly ovoid, c. 10-14 X 9-10 µ, or irregularly subquandrangulate.
Pycnoconidia not seen.
Ascus membrane I +/- intense, persistently bluish, gelatin I subhyaline, hymenium KOH-, if not epithecium beautiful blue.
The thin arachnoid thallus might, perhaps, suggest a fungus or be due to the disintegration of the substratum. But some granules were examined microscopically and found to consist of a fully normal lichen structure, filled with gonidia.
Its black apothecia would exclude the “Biatorae”. – Its paraphyses, asci and spores refer Lecidea pachydermatica to the present section. It is distinct from Lecidea Magnussonii in its thin thallus and thick-walled spores.
It has the same thick-walled spores as Lecidea Tornoensis, but that species is a Biatora, its apothecia are “blood red, black-red, or black”, its spores are much larger, 16-24 X 10-16 µ, its paraphyses “grown together, hyaline or dirty-slightly dark brown/greyish-brown, apices trending towards intensely colored, shows that the addition of KOH makes them dark brown/greyish-brown-capitate” (TH. FR. Lich. Scand. p. 464-5). – Lecidea Nylanderi has considerably smaller, leptodermatous spores, 4-6 µ in diam., and coherent, brownish-capitated paraphyses.