The genus Fellhanera Vězda was created to accommodate 19 species formerly included into Bacidia (Santesson 1952), most of them tropical foliicolous lichens characterised by the pyriform conidia, the Byssoloma-ascus type, a thin-walled paraplectenchymatous exciple and thin, anastomosing paraphyses. Several additional taxa have been later described and combined in this genus, which now includes more than 70 species, some of them also from temperate Europe (see e.g. Aptroot & al. 1998, Sparrius & Aptroot 2000, Sérusiaux & al. 2001). A survey of the foliicolous taxa was given by Lucking & al. (1994); Sérusiaux (1996) provided a key to all foliicolous species then known, and also introduced the genus Fellhaneropsis Sérus. & Coppins for two species formerly included in Fellhanera and mainly differing in the filiform-sigmoid conidia. Fellhaneropsis currently comprises seven species, three of which are known from Europe. For a key to all sterile pycnidiate species of Fellhaneropsis see Ekman (2015). Both genera belong to the Pilocarpaceae (see Andersen & Ekman 2005) and in Europe several species are rapidly spreading northwards (Aptroot 2012).
The present key includes the 4 species of Fellhanera and the 2 species of Fellhaneropsis known to occur in Italy (Nimis 2016), plus a few other species of Fellhanera known from other parts of Europe and whose occurrence in Italy is possible, for a total of 10 species.

References

Andersen H.L., Ekman S. 2005. Disintegration of the Micareaceae (lichenized Ascomycota): a molecular phylogeny based on mitochondrial rDNA sequences. Mycol. Res., 109: 21-30.
Aptroot A. 2012. A new foliicolous Fellhaneropsis (Pilocarpaceae) from the Netherlands. Lichenologist, 44: 441-444.
Aptroot A., Brand A.M., Spier L. 1998. Fellhanera viridisorediata, a new sorediate species from sheltered trees and shrubs in Western Europe. Lichenologist, 30: 21-26.
Lucking R., Lumbsch H. Th., Elix J. A. 1994, Chemistry, anatomy and morphology of foliicolous species of Fellhanera and Badimia. Botanica Acta, 107: 393-401.
Ekman S. 2015. Fellhaneropsis almquistiorum sp. nov. from Europe (Pilocarpaceae, lichenized Ascomycota) Nordic J. Bot., 33, 6: 641-645.
Nimis P.L. 2016. The lichens of Italy. A second annotated catalogue. EUT, Trieste, 740 pp.
Santesson R. 1952. Foliicolous lichens I. A revision of the taxonomy of the obligately foliicolous lichenized fungi. Symb. Bot. Upsal., 12, 1: 1-250.
Sérusiaux E. 1996. Foliicolous lichens from Madeira, with the description of a new genus and two new species and a world key of foliicolous Fellhanera. Lichenologist, 28: 197-228.
Sérusiaux E., Coppins B.J., Diederich P., Scheidegger C. 2001. Fellhanera gyrophorica, a new European species with conspicuous pycnidia. Lichenologist, 33, 1: 285-289.
Sparrius L.B., Aptroot A. 2000. Fellhanera ochracea, a new corticolous lichen species from sheltered habitats in Western Europe. Lichenologist, 32: 515-520.

Last modified: August, 23, 2023

Project Dryades, Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste - CC BY-SA 4.0