Coniarthonia pyrrhula
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Coniarthonia pyrrhula | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Closeup of Coniarthonia pyrrhula growing on Myrica; scale: 0.5 mm | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Ascomycota |
| Class: | Arthoniomycetes |
| Order: | Arthoniales |
| Family: | Arthoniaceae |
| Genus: | Coniarthonia |
| Species: | C. pyrrhula |
| Binomial name | |
| Coniarthonia pyrrhula (Nyl.) Grube (2001) | |
| Synonyms[1] | |
| |
Coniarthonia pyrrhula is a species of crustose lichen-forming fungus in the family Arthoniaceae.[2] It is a bark-dwelling lichen with a thin, whitish crust and flat, crimson-red fruiting bodies with a floury surface, found across the Americas and in Macaronesia. It is the type species of the genus Coniarthonia, described originally in 1885 and transferred to that genus in 2001.
Coniarthonia pyrrhula was originally described by William Nylander in 1885 as Arthonia pyrrhula (cited as "Nyl. ex Nyl."), based on material collected in the Southeastern United States ("in Carolina") by Edward Tuckerman. In the protologue, Nylander characterized the species by its broad, whitish thallus, scarlet linear fruiting bodies (apothecia) that are usually simple or only slightly branched, and relatively large, colorless, ascospores with 5 or 6 septa. He also distinguished it from Arthonia cinnabarina by its more slender apothecia and different spores.[3] When Martin Grube established the genus Coniarthonia in 2001 for a set of red-pruinose arthonioid lichens with poorly delimited, largely hydrophobic ascomata packed with red crystals, he transferred the species as Coniarthonia pyrrhula and selected a lectotype from Nylander's material (H-NYL 5599). Grube also designated C. pyrrhula as the type species of Coniarthonia. [4]
Within the genus, C. pyrrhula belongs to the C. pyrrhula group, whose members have relatively large, multi-septate to (in some species) muriform ascospores and a distinctive set of reddish pigments detectable by thin-layer chromatography. The species is reported to be fairly common in collections but is often encountered without mature asci or spores, which can make confident identification difficult. [4]