Phylloblastia

[Fay Newbery]

I’ve finally found a sample of Phylloblastia in Surrey with mature spores. Have ruled out P. inexpectata since the spores regularly have 5 or more transverse septa. Can’t find enough information to distinguish between P. fortuita and sp MP4506. Can anyone help, please?

[Neil Sanderson]

Fay

Well done. Phylloblastia fortuita has at most submuriform spores with 0–2 longitudinal septa, for which Alan Orange’s British and Other Pyrenocarpous Lichens https://museum.wales/media/13849/Orange-A-2013-British-and-other-pyrenocarpous-lichens.pdf” class=”bbcode_url”>https://museum.wales/media/13849/Orange-A-2013-British-and-other-pyrenocarpous-lichens.pdf gives the measuremants (16–)20–39(–42) × (4–)5–9(– 10.9) μm, 5–7-septate with 0–2 longitudinal sept. What you have is fully muriform and looks like what I call Phylloblastia cf bielczykiae but Paul has as sp MP4506. This has larger more muriform spores: my measurements 27 – 55 (60) x 8 – 13µm with 7 to 9 traverse septa with 4 to 6 longitudinal septa. So far Phylloblastia cf bielczykiae seems more southern thant the others, I have not heard of it north of Epping Forest (Mark is this still true?) and I have had it as far west as east Dorset. Some pictures attached.

Neil

[Fay Newbery]

Thanks Neil. Mine was from holly leaves at Painshill Park. I think you took a sample from there too. How are we recording this for the BLS database?

[Neil Sanderson]

Fay

I woundered if it was the same tree! I got the same taxa. I am putting it in as Phylloblastia bielczykiae, as this is not in the dictionary you need to paste it into the species column. It is useful to put in any “known unknowns” under a name like “Roselliniella sp A” (a distinctive parasite of Pertusaria pertusa found on old Beech mainly) and add a brief description in the notes, if finally sorted out the temporary name can be replace with the correct one in the database.

Neil

[Chris Johnson]

Fay, welcome to the forum.

What an interesting post. Was this on old leaves still attached or dead leaves?

Chris

[Mark Powell]

I haven’t seen Phylloblastia cf. bielczykiae further north than Epping Forest. This is in contrast to the other two Phylloblastia species. I found P. fortuita in N.E. Yorkshire and P. inexpectata extends up into Scotland.

Just a note on filling in spreadsheets, I thought that we were discouraged from pasting things into the Taxon name column (L). For uncertain species I thought that Janet preferred the genus to be put in the Species column (J) and notes about it in the Record Notes column (R). There are various misspelt names in the database which I think have arisen by people over-writing or pasting into the Taxon name column. However, I am not entirely certain about this and will find out.

[Fay Newbery]

Chris Johnson wrote:

Fay, welcome to the forum.

What an interesting post. Was this on old leaves still attached or dead leaves?

Chris

I’ve only ever seen Phylloblastia species on living leaves. They seem to like the waxy coating of holly leaves and I know they’ve been seen on other waxy evergreen leaves too. Neil and Mark will know more.

[Chris Johnson]

Fay Newbery wrote:

I’ve only ever seen Phylloblastia species on living leaves. They seem to like the waxy coating of holly leaves and I know they’ve been seen on other waxy evergreen leaves too. Neil and Mark will know more.

Thanks, Fay. I will look out for it next time I go to Stornoway, although way outside its known range.

Chris

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