Tetramelas confusus
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| Tetramelas confusus | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Ascomycota |
| Class: | Lecanoromycetes |
| Order: | Caliciales |
| Family: | Caliciaceae |
| Genus: | Tetramelas |
| Species: | T. confusus |
| Binomial name | |
| Tetramelas confusus A.Nordin (2004) | |
Tetramelas confusus is a species of crustose lichen in the family Caliciaceae.[1] Found in the South Island of New Zealand, it was formally described as a new species in 2002 by Anders Nordin. The lichen is only known to occur in the Central Otago mountains, where it grows in alpine grasslands on dead grass, plant detritus, and old rabbit droppings. It has a thin, creamy-white to greyish-white thallus that spreads irregularly. Secondary chemicals found in the lichen include 6-O-methylarthothelin (major) and atranorin (minor). Similar species include T. papillatus, T. insignis, and T. graminicolus.
Swedish lichenologist Anders Nordin formally described Tetramelas confusus in 2004 after recognising that specimens from New Zealand previously assigned to Buellia papillata differed consistently in anatomy and chemistry. His type material, collected by David J. Galloway on the Old Man Range / Kopuwai (Otago), became the species' holotype. Nordin placed the taxon in Tetramelas, a genus resurrected a few years earlier for crustose lichens with relatively large, brown, one- to three-celled spores and xanthone chemistry. Within that genus, T. confusus is morphologically intermediate between T. papillatus and T. insignis. It resembles the former in spore length but shares with the latter a thin, irregular thallus and the presence of the xanthone 6-O-methylarthothelin. Key separating characters include its broader, basally constricted apothecia (to 2.5 mm wide) and slightly smaller spores than those of T. insignis.[2]
A DNA sequence of the internal transcribed spacer region of Tetramelas confusus was included in a molecular analysis of several Tetramelas species published in 2005; the result suggests that its closest relative is T. papillatus.[3]