Fissurina sporolata

The lichen forms a brown, glossy thallus (the main lichen body) that is finely cracked and warty. Its fruiting bodies are lirellae—slit-like fissures typical of script lichens—measuring 1.5–3 mm long, usually simple and immersed in the thallus. Internally the lirellae belong to the subcontexta type, meaning the surrounding tissue swells slightly so the slit appears puffed up.^[2]

The spore-bearing layer (hymenium) is clear and unusually tall (225–250 μm). Each ascus contains eight colourless, thick-walled ascospores that are muriform—divided by both cross-wise and length-wise walls into many chambers. The spores are ellipsoidal, 42–57 μm long by 17–25 μm wide, and surrounded by a gelatinous halo 5–7 μm thick that shows a faint blue tint when stained with iodine. No lichen products were detected in chemical spot tests.^[2]

The species is known only from the Western Ghats of Karnataka, southern India. Both the type and an additional collection were made on the bark of roadside trees within moist deciduous forest near Hebri—a very humid environment strongly influenced by the south-west monsoon.^[2]