Pilophorus fruticosus
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| Pilophorus fruticosus | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Ascomycota |
| Class: | Lecanoromycetes |
| Order: | Lecanorales |
| Family: | Cladoniaceae |
| Genus: | Pilophorus |
| Species: | P. fruticosus |
| Binomial name | |
| Pilophorus fruticosus Li S.Wang & Xin Y.Wang (2011) | |
Pilophorus fruticosus is a little-known species of rock-dwelling fruticose lichen in the family Cladoniaceae.[1] It was described in 2011 by Chinese scientists from specimens collected in Yunnan Province, southwestern China. The lichen forms a small greyish crust on rock surfaces from which arise branching, shrub-like stalks that repeatedly fork and end in single black, spherical fruiting bodies. It is known only from two closely spaced locations in the Cang Mountain range, where it grows on exposed ridges at around 3,500 metres elevation among open conifer-rhododendron woodland.
Pilophorus fruticosus was described in 2011 by Xin-Yu Wang, Li-Song Wang and co-workers after material collected in 2006 on Cang Mountain in Yunnan Province, south-western China, was shown to represent an undescribed species rather than the superficially similar P. robustus. The new species was diagnosed by its densely and evenly dichotomous pseudopodetia, each branch terminating in a single, spherical black apothecium (fruiting body), together with partly cortex-lacking stalks that reveal a dark pigmented medulla.[2]
Comparative morphology separates it from P. robustus, which has stouter, umbellately branched stalks, a well-developed internal columella and lacks the dark boundary layer that marks the junction between sterile and fertile tissues in P. fruticosus. Occasional forked branches in P. acicularis and P. awasthianus may cause confusion, but those species differ in taller or aggregated stalks, larger spores and the absence of the distinguishing boundary texture.[2]