TYPE. UNITED STATES. South Carolina. On dry bleached wood, H.W. Ravenel 680 (NY, holotype).

Life form. Lichenized fungus.

Description. [Modified from Egea & Torrente (1993)] Thallus crustose, continuous, thin, mostly endophloedal, whitish. Vegetative diaspores absent. Photobiont Trentepohlia alga. Ascomata  apothecoid, numerous, scattered, roundish, 0.2-0.5 mm diam., at first immersed becoming erumpent to ±sessile; disk black, flat to slightly convex, epruinose; margin smooth, thin, ± excluded. Exciple dark brown, open or closed below subhymenium, 15-35 μm at the top and 30-50(-75) μm at the base, I+ reddish or deep blue, K/I+ deep blue. Hymenium 70-110 μm, I+ reddish or pale blue, K/I+ pale blue. Subhymenium pale to dark red-brown, 60-100 μm, I+ reddish or deep blue, K/I+ deep blue. Paraphysoids branched and anastomosing, tips not or slightly thickened. Asci 55-75(-80) x 11-13 μm; ascospores Patellarioides-type (acicular, with even surface or slightly constricted at center, fragmenting into pluricellular segments outside the asci, very seldom in the asci; cells longer than wide), hyaline, 5-9(-12)-septate, 33-56(-65) x (2-5-)3-3-5 μm. Conidiomata pycnidia, immersed or semi-immersed in the thallus or substratum, punctiform, globose or subglobose, 110-120 μm tall x 90-100 μm wide; pycnidial wall 12-15 μm, apically dark brown and ±pale brown at the base. Conidia 9-14 x 0-8-1 μm, curved.

Chemistry. Thallus spot tests negative; no substances detected by TLC.

Substrate and habitat. Corticolous on hardwood trees in coastal forests.

Distribution. Neotropical: Caribbean and Gulf and Atlantic coasts of southeastern North America; in North Carolina found in the Coastal Plain ecoregion.

Literature

Ellis, J.B.; Everhart, B.M. (1885) New fungi. Journal of Mycology 1(12): 148-154 (original description as Patellaria carolinensis).

Egea, J.M. and P. Torrente (1993) The lichen genus Bactrospora. The Lichenologist 25: 211–255.

Knudsen, K., J. C. Lendemer & R. C. Harris (2011) Studies in lichens and lichenicolous fungi -- no. 15: miscellaneous notes on species from eastern North America. Opuscula Philolichenum 9: 45-75.