TYPE. UNITED STATES. Massachusetts, Nonquitt, 1874, H. Willey s.n. (US 00479175, isotype)

Description. Life form. Lichenized fungus.

Thallus fruticose, erect, rigid, up to 7 cm diam., yellowish green, base blackening. Branches solid, round in section, often with short, thorn-like side branches; surface smooth to tuberculate with raised pseudocyphellae; apices filiform. Vegetative diaspores absent. Medulla white; photobiont trebouxioid alga. Ascomata lecanorine apothecia, abundant, terminal or subterminal on branch tips, 1-3 mm diam.; disk concave to convex, pale buff color. Epihymenium yellow-brown; hymenium hyaline, clear; hypothecium hyaline. Asci 8-spored; ascospores hyaline, ellipsoid, 1-septate, 10-15 x 4-6μm.

Chemistry. Cortex UV-, K-, KC+ yellow, C-, PD- (usnic acid); medulla UV-, K+ yellow turning red, KC-, C-, PD+ orange (salazinic acid).

Substrate and Habitat. On bark and wood of cedar (Juniperus virginiana) in coastal habitats.

Distribution. Coastal eastern North America; in North Carolina found in the Coastal Plain and Tidewater ecoregions.

Literature

Howe, R.H. Jr. (1914) North American species of the genus Ramalina. Part V. The Bryologist 17(3): 33-39 (original description).

Lendemer, J.C. & N. Noell. (2018) Delmarva Lichens: An illustrated manual. Memoirs of the Torrey Botanical Society 28: 1-386.