Viridothelium
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| Viridothelium | |
|---|---|
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| Viridothelium virens | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Ascomycota |
| Class: | Dothideomycetes |
| Order: | Trypetheliales |
| Family: | Trypetheliaceae |
| Genus: | Viridothelium Lücking, M.P.Nelsen & Aptroot (2016) |
| Type species | |
| Viridothelium virens | |
Viridothelium is a genus of lichen-forming fungi in the family Trypetheliaceae. It comprises 11 species. Viridothelium species can be recognised as a warty, greenish crust whose spore-bearing bumps are more or less the same colour as the rest of the lichen, open by tiny pores, and produce clear multi-celled spores with only modest internal thickening.
The genus was circumscribed by Robert Lücking Matthew Nelsen, and André Aptroot in 2016 as part of a wide-ranging phylogenetic revision of the family Trypetheliaceae. The temperate North-American species Viridothelium virens was assigned as the type species. Lichens in this genus were previously assigned to genus Trypethelium, as part of the Trypethelium virens clade. Molecular analyses placed Viridothelium in a well-supported lineage next to Marcelaria and Trypethelium in the strict sense (sensu stricto), and statistical tests show that forcing it into either neighbour contradicts the sequence data.[1]