TYPE. BRAZIL. Santa Catarina, Blumenau, Sta Catharina, Feb 1888, E. Ule 892 (S L2800, L4640 lectotypes).

Description. Life form: lichenized fungus.

Thallus crustose, grayish green, thin, membraneous; prothallus translucent; vegetative diaspores absent; hyphophores (conidiomata) sometimes present, emerging from prothallus, black, blunt, setiform (bristle-like). Photobiont chlorococcoid alga. Ascomata occasional, zeorine apothecia, irregularly squarrish, 0.2-0.5 mm diam.; thalline margin thick, black, carbonized; excipular margin reduced; disk pale, sharply quadrangular. Hymenium hyaline; hypothecium hyaline. Paraphyses slender. Asci 1-3(-6)-spored; ascospores hyaline, oblong, submuriform, 15-25 x 6-8.5 μm.

Chemistry. Hymenial gel I-.

Substrate and Habitat. Foliicolous on evergreen leaves of palms, palmettos and hardwoods.

Distribution. Southeast Asia, Neotropics north into eastern North America; in North Carolina found in Blue Ridge ecoregion; to be expected throughout the state based on phorophyte distributions.

Literature

Lücking, R., W.R. Buck & E. Rivas Plata. (2008) The lichen family Gomphillaceae (Ostropales) in eastern North America, with notes on hyphophore development in Gomphillus and Gyalideopsis. The Bryologist 110(4): 622-672.

Stirton, J. (1878) Lichens growing on living leaves from the Amazon. Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow 11: 99-111 (original description as Platygrapha quadrangula).