[AlanFUSA]

Hi Dave:

Welcome to the wonderful world of saxicolous crusts – and thanks for the kind words about my thesis!

I’m pleased that you found Lithographa tesserata first. It’s such a beautiful, unmistakable species that it’s the kind of thing to get you well and truly hooked! If you had gone straight into Porpidia it might have been a different story – they are a morass of closely related species with even the major groups separated by subtle characters (like width of excipular hyphae, thalline chemistry, etc.). That said, your ID of P. flavicunda appears OK. The only alternative is P. flavocruenta, but the lack of a K+ magenta solution in the exciple and the narrow excipular hyphae appears to exclude that species. Within Porpidia they are not even closely related.

No idea about the red streaks – but interesting…

Keep up the good work. Always happy to help!

Alan

[AlanFUSA]

Hi Mark:

Nice pics!

Definitely a Lecidea sp. and L. lithophila is a very good shout. However, the apothecia in that species are usually brown – especially when wet – because of the brown epihymenium. I would tend towards L. lapicida – which has a blue-green epihymenium – but it is really impossible to be certain without cutting a section.

Alan

[AlanFUSA]

Neil:

Thanks for posting the directions! I wasn’t aware of the problem at the time – I get a different screen because I’m logged in as me (obviously)!

Alan

[AlanFUSA]

Neil:

I’m not convinced. The spores are the wrong shape (too narrow) for B. ocellata – not to mention not pigmented – and B. ocellata has a dark hypothecium and a much reduced exciple. I don’t have a better suggestion, mind.

Alan

[AlanFUSA]

Neil:

You should get in touch with Christian Printzen. He has a project ‘Leconomics” <https://lecanomics.org/data/index.php?lang=en> investigating taxon delimitation in Lecanora. I’m sure he’d love to sequence some of your collections.

Alan

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