TYPE. KENYA. Kirinyaga Distr., Aberdare Mts, 10 km W of Tusha, Ericaceous zone, on trees, 2900 m elev., Feb. 1974, H. Krog, T.D.V. Swinscow 3K31/188 (O L 521, holotype; O L 5, O L 6, isotypes).
Description.Life form: lichenized fungus.
Thallus foliose, light gray, loosely attached, orbicular up to 5 cm diam. Lobes flat, short, 2-5(-6) mm wide, 0.5-1.5 cm long; axils rounded; margins revolute; tips emaculate, rounded, down-curved, brownish. Vegetative diaspores soredia erupting from laminal, submarginal pustules; soredia white to pale greenish, coarsely granular. Lower surface black, shiny; rhizines black, long, stiff, simple to bristle-like. Thallus stratified: upper cortex of tightly packed, anticlinally oriented hyphae, with a pored epicortex; photobiont chlorococcoid alga; medulla white, but appearing blackish when exposed in eroded soralia; lower cortex brown, of anticlinally oriented hyphae. Ascomata lecanorine apothecia, rare, up to 6(-10) mm diam., strongly constricted at base; disk brown; thalline margin crenulate, sorediate. Epithecium brown; hymenium and hypothecium hyaline. Asci clavate, Lecanora-type, 8-spored; ascospores simple, hyaline, ellipsoid to broadly ellipsoid, 11-19 x 6-12 μm. Pycnidia rare, immersed, laminal; conidia bifusiform.
Substrate and Habitat. Corticolous on hardwood and conifer trees in mixed hardwood forests.
Distribution. Cosmopolitan; in North Carolina found in the Blue Ridge ecoregion.
Literature
Knudsen, K. & J.C. Lendemer (2005) Changes and additions to the North American lichen flora. — IV. Mycotaxon93: 289-295.
Lendemer, J.C. & R.C. Harris (2006) Hypotrachyna showmanii, a misunderstood species from eastern North America. Opuscula Philolichenum3: 15-20.
Nimis P.L. (2023). ITALIC - The Information System on Italian Lichens. Version 7.0. University of Trieste, Dept. of Biology, (https://dryades.units.it/italic), accessed on 2023-05-30.