Parmelina was introduced to accommodate grey-coloured parmelioid species with sparse marginal cilia, a black lower surface and an upper cortex with a palisade plectenchyma and a pored epicortex. In its original circumscription, the genus included a number of unrelated elements that were subsequently placed elsewhere. In its restricted sense, the genus has a centre of distribution in western North America and Europe. It currently includes c. 15 species distributed in the temperate regions of both Hemispheres. Argüello & al. (2007) found that P. quercina, as circumscribed by Hale (1976), comprises four species, two of which do occur in Europe: P. quercina in the strict sense (continental Europe) and P. carporrhizans (oceanic and suboceanic Europe, and Macaronesia). A third species, the saxicolous P. atricha, was added to the European flora by Clerc & Truong (2008). Finally, Núñez-Zapata & al. (2011) described a further cryptic species, P. cryptotiliacea, which is almost indistinguishable from P. tiliacea, and seems to be restricted to a rather narrow portion of the Iberian Peninsula; these authors also found that P. pastillifera was nested within P. tiliacea. However, Barcenas-Peña & al. (2023) found that the two species are molecularly different; these authors also described two cryptic species also occuring in Italy, P. clandestina and P. mediterranea, which can be distinguished from P. tiliacea only by molecular data. .

References

Argüello A., Nederson Prado R., Cubas P., Crespo A. 2007. Parmelina quercina (Parmeliaceae, Lecanorales) includes four phylogenetically supported morphospecies. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 91, 3: 455-467.
Barcenas-Peña A., Divakar P.K., Crespo A., Núñez-Zapata J., Lumbsch H.T., Grewe F. 2023. Reference-based restriction-site-associated DNA sequencing data are useful for species delineation in a recently diverged asexually reproducing species complex (Parmeliaceae, Ascomycota). J. of Fungi, 9, 12:1180.
Clerc P., Truong C. 2008. The non-sorediate and non-isidiate Parmelina species (lichenized ascomycetes, Parmeliaceae) in Switzerland - Parmelina atricha (Nyl.) P. Clerc reinstated in the European lichen flora. Sauteria, 15: 175-194.
Hale M.E. Jr. 1976. A monograph of the lichen genus Parmelina Hale (Parmeliaceae). Smithsonian Contrib. Bot., 33: 1-60.
Nimis P.L. 2016. The lichens of Italy. A second annotated catalogue. EUT, Trieste, 740 pp.
Núñez-Zapata J., Divakar P.K., Del-Prado R., Cubas P., Hawksworth D.L., Crespo A. 2011. Conundrums in species concepts: the discovery of a new cryptic species segregated from Parmelina tiliacea (Ascomycota: Parmeliaceae). Lichenologist 43, 6: 603-616
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