Buellia spuria
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| Buellia spuria | |
|---|---|
 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Ascomycota |
| Class: | Lecanoromycetes |
| Order: | Caliciales |
| Family: | Caliciaceae |
| Genus: | Buellia |
| Species: | B. spuria |
| Binomial name | |
| Buellia spuria (Schaer.) Anzi (1860) | |
| Synonyms[2] | |
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Buellia spuria, the disc lichen, is a white to light ashy gray crustose areolate lichen that grows on rocks (epilithic) in montane habitats.[3] It has a black edge from the conspicuous, more or less continuous prothallus, which can also be seen in the cracks between the areolas forming a hypothallus, and in sharp contrast with the whitish or ashy colored areolas.[3] It prefers mafic (siliceous) rock substrates.[3] In Joshua Tree National Park is can be seen on vertical granite and gneiss faces in washes.[4] It is common worldwide in the Northern Hemisphere.[3] It is very common in the Sonoran Desert from southern California to Arizona, Baja California, and Sonora, Chihuahua, and Sinaloa, Mexico.[3]
It is similar in appearance to Buellia stellulata, but has a different secondary chemistry, and B. spuria is common throughout the Sonoran Desert region, while B. stellulata is restricted to coastal regions.[3]
