TYPE. UNITED STATES. Massachusetts, Bristol Co., near New Bedford, ad saxa granitica, 1876, H.Willey s.n. (G, holotype)
Description.Life form: lichenized fungus.
[modified from Dibben 1980] Thallus gray or yellowish or greenish gray, episubstratal, thin to moderately thick or thicker; margin +/- entire and unzoned. Surface smooth becoming verrucose, shiny or rarely dull, continuous to rimose or rimose-areolate (at times weakly so); areoles (0.2-)0.7(-1.0) mm in diam. Vegetative diaspores absent. Fertile warts concolorous with the thallus, predominantly pertusariate and flat topped (often appearing falsely lecanorine), ampliariate and conical when grouped, +/- numerous, dispersed or crowded and adpressed, at times fused (2-3), (0.4-)1.6(-3.0) mm in diam.; margin frequently prominent, +/- crenulate and lightly fissured, or at times eroded exposing the medulla. Ostioles 1 or 4-8(-13) per wart, level to less often sunken, frequently dispersed within a central depression, later dilating and fusing to form a broad pseudolecanorine disc, (0.1-)0.6(-1.5) mm wide, the surface black and at times heavily white-pruinose. Ascomata pertusaroid apothecia, (1-)2-5(-5) per fertile wart, (0.34-)0.74(-1.24) mm diam.; hymenium hyaline to yellow-brown (rarely pink); hypothecium hyaline (less often pallid; epithecium dark brown or black (rarely pallid), K+ strongly violet (often slow to develop). Asci clavate or cylindrical, (53-)78(-106) x (277-)408(-558) μm. Ascospores (4-6-)8 per ascus, biseriate (lateral or irregular) or occasionally uniseriate (longitudinal or oblique) in ascus, ellipsoid to frequently fusiform, rarely cylindric or deformed, (24-)48(-78) x (60-)93(-142) μm, the wall and lumen K-. Outer spore wall (1-)4(-10) μm thick; inner spore wall (2-)7(-12) μm thick, smooth, unzoned (faint radial or concentric laminations rarely seen), generally well-trimmed; end wall (10-)16(-24) μm thick. Pycnidia not known.
Substrate and habitat. Corticolous hardwood trees or saxiolous.
Distribution. Eastern North America; in North Carolina found throughout.
Literature
Dibben, M.J. (1980) The Chemosystematics of the Lichen Genus Pertusaria in North America North of Mexico. Publications in Biology and Geology No. 5, Milwaukee Public Museum Press, Milwaukee. 162 pp.
Müller, J. (1884) Lichenologische Beiträge XIX. Flora (Regensburg) 67(14): 268-274.