TYPE. GERMANY. “Super ramulose Pini picaea prope Leutkirch in Wuertembergia (Herter)” (Nylander 1886).

Description. Life form: lichenized fungus.

Thallus crustose, gray-green, thin, membraneous, smooth to minutely granular; vegetative diaspores absent; hyphophores (stalked conidiomata) dark grey to black, 0.1-0.2 mm tall, bent at the middle, tips pale, often frayed. Photobiont trebouxioid alga. Ascomata occasional, zeorine apothecia, 0.1-0.3 mm diam.; thalline margin thin, lacking algae; excipular margin reduced; disk epruinose, deep red-brown. Hymenium hyaline, of paraphyses in gel; paraphyses slender, branching and anastomosing. Asci thin-walled, somewhat thickened at tip, 4-spored; ascospores hyaline, ellipsoid, submuriform, 12-19 × 4.5-7 μm.

Chemistry. Spot tests: negative; no substances detected by TLC.

Substrate and Habitat. Corticolous on conifer twigs in humid forests.

Distribution. Pantemperate (western and eastern North America, Europe, Turkey, Japan); in North Carolina found in Blue Ridge ecoregion.

Literature

Bjork, C.J. & T. Goward. (2010) Epiphytic Crustose Lichens of the Clearwater Valley, British Columbia. Hosted by WaysOfEnlichenment.net (accessed 31 Dec 2022).

Nylander, W. (1886) Addenda nova ad lichenographiam europaeam. Contin. XLV. Flora (Regensburg). 69: 97-102 (original description as Lecidea piceicola).