Type. UNITED STATES. Delaware, Newark, on Fomes applanata [≡Ganoderma applanatum (Pers.) Pat.], Commons s.n. (NY, holotype).

Description. Lichenized fungus.

Thallus crustose, thin, immersed, whitish gray or pale green-gray; vegetative diaspores absent. Thallus anatomy homoiomerous (not stratified); photobiont Trentepohlia alga.

Ascomata perithecia, scattered, subconical to ± globose, initially immersed, becoming ± superficial, 0.15-0.25 mm diam., frequent; upper wall with a scarcely differentiated involucrellum, 30-50 µm thick; lower wall thinner and paler; hamathecium clear, hymenial gel I– (non-amyloid); pseudoparaphyses slender, branched and anastomosed, long-celled, c. 1 µm thick; periphyses absent.

Asci cylindric-clavate, 55-90 x 12-15 µm, 8-spored in one row. Ascospores hyaline, 12-23 × 3-6 µm, 1- to 3-septate, clavate-fusiform, the part above the primary septum wider and about twice as long as the lower. Pycnidia black, of two types: (a) 0.08-0.15 mm diam., 0.1-0.75 mm high, ± sessile, conical with an ostiolar neck comprising vertically arranged, brown-walled hyphae, which at the apex of the neck have free, colorless, pointed ends, with ellipsoid or ovoid macroconidia with truncate base, 3.5-4.5 × 1.8-3 µm, extruded as a white tendril 10-20 µm wide, in which the conidia are bound by a gelatinous matrix; or (b) 0.05-0.1 mm diam., ± immersed, globose, with rod-shaped to narrowly ellipsoid microconidia, 2-3 × 1-1.3 µm. 

Chemistry. Spot tests all negative; secondary metabolites not reported.

Substrate and Habitat. On bark of hardwood trees, also reported from wood, rock and bone (Coppins et al. 2009), in mixed and hardwood forests.

Distribution. Cosmopolitan except Antarctica; in North Carolina found throughout.

Literature

Coppins, B.J., P.W. James & A. Orange. (2009) Anisomeridium (Müll. Arg.) M. Choisy (1928). Pp. 130-132 in Smith, C.W., A. Aptroot, B.J. Coppins, A. Fletcher, O.L. Gilbert, P.W. & and P.A. Wolseley (ed.). 2009. The Lichens of Great Britain and Ireland. British Lichen Society, London.

Ellis, JB; Everhart, BM. (1892) The North American Pyrenomycetes: a contribution to mycologic botany. Ellis & Everhart, Newfield. 1-793 (original description as Apiospora polypori).