TYPE. ETHIOPIA. Abissinia, In regione boreali media montis Silke, ad truncos Ericae acrophyllae, 20.II.1840, W. Schimper 436, Schimperi Iter Abyssinicum. Sectio secunda #436 (UPS, holotype; S, type).
Description.Life form: lichenized fungus.
Thallus fruticose, ~5 cm long, erect, abundantly and irregularly branched. Branches cylindrical to tapering, up to ~1.5 mm diam.; surface smooth, coarse or papillate, sometimes cracked; grayish green, rarely red, becoming brownish on main branches, base often darkened. Vegetative diaspores soredia in soralia; soralia frequent on thinner branches, convex to capitate, surrounded by eroded thallus; soredia farinose, yellowish white. Branch tips thick, abundantly branched. Thallus stratified: cortex ~100 μm thick, hard, brownish; photobiont chlorococcoid alga; medulla 400 μm thick, lax; axis 300 μm diam., solid. Ascomata apothecia, terminal, pedicellate, 10 mm diam., with marginal, branched fibrils; pedicel smooth, pale, slightly papillate; disk flat, pale, slightly white-pruinose. Asci clavate, 8-spored; ascospores hyaline, simple, 10 x 8 μm.
Chemistry. Medulla K+ reddish; otherwise not reported.
Substrate and Habitat. Corticolous on trees in mountainous areas.
Distribution. East Africa, Central America, eastern North America; in North Carolina represented by one specimen collected in the Blue Ridge ecoregion.
Literature
Dodge, C.W. (1956) Some lichens of tropical Africa II. Usnea. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden43(4): 381-396.
Motyka, J. (1938) Lichenum generis Usnea studium monographicum, pars systematica2(2): 561-651 (original description).