ITALIC 8.0

Enchylium confertum (Hepp ex Arnold) Otálora, P.M. Jørg. & Wedin

Fungal Divers. 64. 1: 286, 2013 (2014). Basionym: Collema confertum Hepp ex Arnold - Flora, 42: 145, 1859.

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Distribution:

Description: Thallus minutely foliose, homoiomerous, ecorticate, gelatinous when wet, olive-black to black, cushion-like to subumbilicate, 1-1.5 cm wide, with very short, radiating, flat to convex, up to 1.5 mm wide lobes with swollen apices; lower surface usually somewhat paler with tufts of white hapters. Upper and lower cortex absent. Apothecia common and usually numerous, lecanorine, small, covering most of the thallus, with a red-brown to black, flat to convex disc, and an entire, finally sometimes excluded thalline margin. Thalline exciple ecorticate; proper exciple rather thin, euthyplectenchymatous; hymenium colourless, I+ blue; paraphyses simple or sparingly branched in upper part; hypothecium yellowish or yellowish brown, I+ blue. Asci 8-spored, cylindrical-clavate, the apex strongly thickened, the apical dome K/I+ pale blue, with a downwardly projecting K/I+ deep blue tubular structure. Ascospores 3-septate to submuriform, hyaline, 13-22 x 8-12 μm. Pycnidia laminal or marginal, immersed in warts, globose, paler than thallus. Conidia bacilliform, usually with swollen ends, straight or slightly curved. Photobiont cyanobacterial (Nostoc, the cells in long chains). Spot tests: all negative. Chemistry: without lichen substances.

Note: a mainly Mediterranean-Atlantic, rather poorly understood species growing on calcareous rocks, also reported from Greece and the Iberian Peninsula. To be looked for in Mediterranean Italy.

Growth form: Foliose, narrow lobed

Substrata: rocks

Photobiont: green algae other than Trentepohlia (primary); cyanobacteria, filamentous (e.g. Nostoc, Scytonema) (secundary, e.g. in cephalodia)

Reproductive strategy: mainly sexual

pH of the substrata:

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Solar irradiation:

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Eutrophication:

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Poleotolerance:

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Altitudinal distribution:

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Predictive model

Harrrie Sipman. Source: http://www.bgbm.org/digitalimages/Aegean/Collema/Co_confertum58857.jpg

Degelius G. 1954. The lichen genus Collema in Europe: Morphology, Taxonomy, Ecology. Symbolae Bot. Upsal. 13, 2: 1-499.