Halegrapha chimaera
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| Halegrapha chimaera | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Ascomycota |
| Class: | Lecanoromycetes |
| Order: | Graphidales |
| Family: | Graphidaceae |
| Genus: | Halegrapha |
| Species: | H. chimaera |
| Binomial name | |
| Halegrapha chimaera Rivas Plata & Lücking (2011) | |
 Holotype: Mount Palali, Philippines | |
Halegrapha chimaera is a species of script lichen in the family Graphidaceae.[1] It forms a thin, whitish-grey crust on tree bark and produces black, elongated, slit-like fruiting bodies. The species is the type of its genus, Halegrapha, which was named in honour of the American lichenologist Mason Hale. It is known only from lower montane rainforest on Luzon in the Philippines.
Halegrapha chimaera was formally described in 2011 by Eimy Rivas Plata and Robert Lücking, at the same time that they introduced the genus Halegrapha (family Graphidaceae), with H. chimaera designated as the type species. The genus was dedicated to the American lichenologist Mason Hale, who had collected early material of the group and recognized its unusual combination of characters, but did not publish a description.[2]
The authors regarded Halegrapha as a morphological "chimera" within the Graphidaceae: it has the black, strongly carbonized, slit-like fruiting bodies typical of Graphis, yet it matches Phaeographis and close relatives in the structure of the hymenium and in having brown, transversely septate ascospores. DNA sequence data available for H. chimaera placed the genus within the broader Phaeographis lineage, while remaining distinct from other named genera treated in that group. In their original account, the authors compared H. chimaera with Graphis anfractuosa, which can look similar externally, but differs in having the typical (hyaline) Graphis spore type rather than the brown, Phaeographis-type spores seen in Halegrapha.[2]