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Phlyctis psoromica Elix & Kantvilas
Nomenclature
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Family: PhlyctidaceaeGenus: Phlyctis
Media
SUMMARY
Mycobank MB 517805
Thallus crustose, 40–80 µm thick, whitish to very pale blue-grey to greenish grey, rimose, scurfy or furfuraceous, lacking isidia and soredia but often becoming ulcerous, eroded and rather granular in the vicinity of the apothecia, forming extensive, irregularly spreading patches 3–10 cm wide; prothallus white, arachnoid, sometimes forming a narrow, ± byssoid margin; photobiont chlorococcoid, with cells globose to subglobose, 6–12(–15) µm wide. Apothecia 0.1–0.4 mm wide, usually aggregated in clusters of 2–6(–10), rarely solitary, immersed to adnate; thalline margin slightly raised, at first entire, soon becoming abraded and at length reduced to white, granular blotches on the surface of the thallus; disc irregularly roundish, plane to concave, pale grey to grey-brown, densely covered with a fine, white pruina; proper exciple grey to grey-black, in section cupular, 10–40 µm, brownish, composed of interwoven, short-celled, branched and anastomosing hyphae 2–4 µm thick. Hypothecium brownish, ca. 25–40 µm thick, poorly differentiated from the excipulum. Hymenium colourless, separating readily in K, 75–120 µm thick, overlain by a brownish, K± olive-brown, granular epihymenial layer that partially dissolves in K; paraphyses simple in the lower part, sparsely branched towards the apices, septate, 1.5–2.5 µm wide, with apices slightly thickened to 2–4 µm wide; asci (4–)8–spored, cylindrical-clavate, 70–100 x 10–12 µm, with wall 1.5–2 µm thick, weakly amyloid but with a thin, more intensely amyloid outer coat, especially near the ascus apex. Ascospores hyaline, fusiform, transversely (3–)7-septate, coiled in the ascus, straight or sigmoid-curved, 30–39.3–50(–52) x 4–5.2–6 µm. Pycnidia not seen. Spot tests: cortex K–, KC–, C– P+ intense yellow. Secondary chemistry: psoromic acid; thallus C–, K–, P+ yellow.