Anzia mahaeliyensis
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| Anzia mahaeliyensis | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Ascomycota |
| Class: | Lecanoromycetes |
| Order: | Lecanorales |
| Family: | Parmeliaceae |
| Genus: | Anzia |
| Species: | A. mahaeliyensis |
| Binomial name | |
| Anzia mahaeliyensis Jayalal, Wolseley & Aptroot (2012) | |
Anzia mahaeliyensis is a species of foliose lichen in the large family Parmeliaceae.[1] It was discovered by scientists studying lichens in Sri Lanka's Horton Plains National Park and was named after the local Sinhalese name Maha Eliya for this high-elevation plateau. The lichen forms loose grey to bluish-grey rosettes on tree bark, with narrow forked lobes that bear abundant small cylindrical structures for asexual reproduction across their upper surfaces. It is endemic to the cloud forests of Sri Lanka's Central Highlands at elevations of 2,150–2,175 meters, where it grows on both living and dead montane forest trees in persistently misty, cool conditions.
Anzia mahaeliyensis is a foliose lichen in the family Parmeliaceae that was formally described in 2012 by Udeni Jayalal, Pat Wolseley and André Aptroot. The holotype was collected in March 2007 from the trunk of a dead tree at roughly 2150 m on the Horton Plains plateau (historically called Maha Eliya) in Sri Lanka. The specific epithet commemorates the local Sinhal name for this high-elevation grassland-forest mosaic.[2]
Molecular analysis of the nuclear internal transcribed spacer region shows that A. mahaeliyensis forms a well-supported clade with A. flavotenuis and their relative A. hypoleucoides; it is the immediate sister to the A. flavotenuis + A. hypoleucoides pair. In morphological terms the species lacks the chondroid axis (a central 'cord' of reinforcing hyphae) that characterises some other Anzia lineages, highlighting incongruence between traditional subgeneric groupings and genetic relationships.[2][3]