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 Life habit: lichenized; Thallus: foliose, ± circular, lobate; lobes: narrow, sublinear, contiguous, rarely imbricate; apices: truncate, eciliate; upper surface: gray, plane to foveolate, shiny or dull, strongly white, simple or reticulate maculae, pruinose or not; with or without isidia, soralia, or lobules; pseudocyphellae common, frequently elongated and irregularly effigurate (developing from the maculae); upper cortex: non-pored epicortex, prosoplechtenchymatous; medulla: white, loosely packed; cell walls containing isolichenan; photobionts: primary one a Trebouxia, secondary photobiont absent; lower surface: black, attached by simple, furcated or squarrose, black rhizines; cyphellae, pseudocyphellae and tomentum absent; Ascomata: apothecial, laminal on thallus, orbicular, cup-shaped, sessile to pedicellate; margin: prominent with thalloid rim; disc: usually pale to dark brown, imperforate; exciple: gray or hyaline, epithecium: brown or brownish yellow; hypothecium: hyaline; asci: lecanoral, wall layers thickened; apex: amyloid, with wide, divergent axial body; c. 8-spored; ascospores: simple, ellipsoid to broadly ellipsoid, 11-15 x 6-9 µm but larger in many Asian species; wall thin, hyaline, not amyloid; Conidiomata: absent or present, pycnidia laminal or marginal, immersed or emergent sessile; conidia: cylindrical, rarely bifusiform, 5-8 x 1 µm; Secondary metabolites: upper cortex atranorin and chloroatranorin (rarely usnic acid accessory); medulla some combination of orcinol depsides or depsidones, ß-orcinol depsides or depsidones or aliphatic acids; Geography: predominately temperate/boreal to arctic/alpine; Substrate: mostly bark, non-calciferous rock, mosses or humus. 



© Lichen Unlimited: Arizona State University, Tempe.

Source: Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region

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