TYPE. “Habitat in corticibus Cinchonae loxae officin.” (Fée 1837) (G, holotype).

Description. Life form: lichenized fungus.

[Translated and modified from Staiger (2002)] Thallus crustose, cream-colored, yellowish, off-white, smooth or slightly uneven, slightly glossy or dull; vegetative diaspores absent. Photobiont trentepohlioid alga. Ascomata lirellae, erumpent to sessile, with a lateral thalline margin when young, rounded-oval to elongated and somewhat branched, 1-5 × 0.5-1 mm; margin persistent, black, epruinose; disk open, brownish black, sunken to convex. Exciple carbonized, entire; epihymenium brown, 5-10 μm thick; hymenium inspersed with oil drops, 130-150 μm high, I-; paraphyses 1.5-2 µm thick, tips browned, branched. Asci 6-8-spored; ascospores brownish, transversely 11–17-septate, 60-80 × 7–8 μm, I+ red-brown.

Chemistry. Norstictic and connorstictic acids (minor).

Substrate and Habitat. Corticolous and hardwood trees.

Distribution. Neotropical north into southeastern North America; in North Carolina found in the Coastal Plain ecoregion.

Literature

Fée, A.L.A. (1837) Essai sur les cryptogames des écorces exotiques officinales. 4. Supplément et Revision. Paris et Strassburg (original description as Arthonia patellula).

Staiger B. (2002) Die Flechtenfamilie Graphidaceae. Studien in Richtung einer natürlicheren Gliederung. Bibliotheca Lichenologica 85: 1–526.