TYPE. UNITED STATES. New England ["In Nova Anglia"] (H-NYL 1251, holotype).

Life form. Lichenized fungus   

Description. [Modified from Aptroot (1991)] Thallus crustose, whitish gray, continuous, endophloedal; prothallus absent. Photobiont likely Trentepohlia. Ascomata perithecia, solitary, black, conical, erumpent, 0.3-0.5 mm diam., 0.2-0.4 mm high. Perithecial wall completely carbonized, up to 120 μm thick; ostiole black, conical, skewed, 80-100 μm. Hamathecium inspersed with oil droplets or not, gelatinized, K/I-; interthecial filaments true paraphyses: simple, 1 μm thick; periphyses absent. Asci 60-80 x 10-14 μm with rounded ocular chamber, 8-spored, irregularly arranged; ascospores hyaline, fusiform with subacute ends, 4-celled, symmetrically septate, not constricted at septa, 14-20(-24) x 6-8(-12) μm; end cells much smaller than central cells; spore wall smooth; perispore absent.

Chemistry. Spot tests negative; no subtances detected by TLC.

Substrate and habitat. Corticolous on hardwoods in forests.

Distribution. Throughout eastern North America, Maldives, Papua New Guinea ; in North Carolina found in Blue Ridge ecoregion.

Literature

Aptroot, A. (1991) A monograph of the Pyrenulaceae (excluding Anthracothecium and Pyrenula) and the Requienellaceae, with notes on the Pleomassariaceae, the Trypetheliaceae and Mycomicrothelia (lichenized and non-lichenized ascomycetes). Bibliotheca Lichenologica, Bd. 44, J. Cramer, Berlin, Stuttgart. 178 pp.

Nylander, W. 1858. Expositio synoptica Pyrenocarpeorum. Pp. 1-88 (original description as Verrucaria hyalospora).