TYPE. UNITED STATES. Florida, Sanford, on Cupressus [Taxodium], 1927, Rapp 83 (FLAS L4248, isotype).

Description. Life form: lichenized fungus.

[Translated and modified from Zahlbruckner 1935] Thallus crustose, epiphloedal, very thin, silver-gray or whitish, shiny, continuous, ecorticate, smooth; prothallus absent. Vegetative diaspores absent. Photobiont Trentepohlia alga, faintly yellowish-green; cells subglobose or broadly ellipsoid, 12-14 nm long, +/- clustered in chains. Ascomata perithecia, scattered, immersed, black, glossy or almost opaque, 0.9-1.1 mm in diam.; ostiole lateral. Perithecial wall entire, carbonized; hymenium hyaline, I+ reddish; paraphyses capillary-filiform, branched and anastomosing, septate. Asci numerous, more or less converging, narrowly cylindrical-subclavate, 132-138 x 14-15 nm, 8-spored, uniseriate; ascospores hyaline, simple, heteromorphic, generally subglobose, 10-14 μm in diam. or ellipsoid with rounded tips, straight, 15-18 x 10-12 μm, surrounded by a thin membrane, content uniformly oily. Conidiomata not seen.

Chemistry. Thallus K-, C-.

Substrate and Habitat. Corticolous on trees.

Distribution. Southeastern North America; in North Carolina found in the Piedmont and Coastal Plain ecoregions.

Literature

Aptroot, A. (1991) Monoblastia pellucida: A Remarkable New Lichen Species from Tropical Coastal Areas, with Comments on the Monoblastiaceae. The Bryologist 94(4): 404-406.

Zahlbruckner, A. (1935) Florida-Flechten, gesammelt von S. Rapp. Annales Mycologici 33(1-2): 33-45 (original description).