ITALIC 8.0

Protoblastenia oulankaensis Pykälä & Myllys

MycoKeys, 124: 212, 2025.

Synonyms:

Distribution: N - Ven (Pykälä & Myllys 2025).

Description: Thallus crustose, endosubstratic or more rarely very thinly episubstratic, continuous or finely cracked, whitish or pale grey, most often inconspicuous. Apothecia c. 10-50 (rarely up to 80)/cm2, 0.3-0.9 mm across, sessile to immersed in the lower fourth, not constricted at base, sometimes leaving shallow pits in the rock when they fall off, with a convex, orange to dark orange disc and a very thin, soon excluded proper margin. Proper exciple poorly developed, of branched, parallel-radiating hyphae, colourless or patchily pale orange; epithecium dark orange-brown, 12-25 µm high, reacting K-, K+ darkening orange or K+ wine-red (not releasing a K+ purple-red solution); hymenium colourless to partly violet, sometimes inspersed with oil droplets, 70-120 µm high; paraphyses coherent, sparingly branched and anastomosing, 2-3 µm thick at mid-level, the apical cells slightly swollen, up to 3.5 µm wide; hypothecium colourless to yellowish, more rarely patchily red-brown, 60-220 μm high. Asci 8-spored, clavate, with a well-developed, amyloid tholus containing a more intensely amyloid, indistinct tube structure, without an ocular chamber, approximating the Porpidia- or Psora-types. Ascospores 1-celled, hyaline, broadly ellipsoid to ovoid, (8.8-)12-16(-18.8) x (5-)6-8(-9.6) μm, without a distinct perispore. Photobiont chlorococcoid. Spot tests: thallus K-, C-, KC-, P-; apothecia K- or K+ wine-red. Chemistry: unknown, probably apothecia with 1-O-methylparietin.

Note: a recently-described, semi-cryptic species of sunny calcareous rocks, characterised by the weak reaction of the apothecia to K, a character shared with the very similar P. lilacina. Material of P. lilacina reported by Kainz & Rambold (2004) from Veneto was sequenced by Pykälä & Myllys (2025) and proved to belong to this species.

Growth form: Crustose

Substrata: rocks

Photobiont: green algae other than Trentepohlia

Reproductive strategy: mainly sexual

Poorly known taxon in need of further study

Commonnes-rarity: (info)

Alpine belt: extremely rare

Subalpine belt: extremely rare

Oromediterranean belt: absent

Montane belt: absent

Submediterranean belt: absent

Padanian area: absent

Humid submediterranean belt: absent

Humid mediterranean belt: absent

Dry mediterranean belt: absent

pH of the substrata:

1

2

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5

(info)

Solar irradiation:

1

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3

4

5

(info)

Aridity:

1

2

3

4

5

(info)

Eutrophication:

1

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5

(info)

Poleotolerance:

0

1

2

3

(info)

Altitudinal distribution:

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6

(info)

Predictive model

DOLICHENS

CC BY 4.0 - Source: Pykälä J, Myllys L (2025) Unexpected species richness of the lichen genus Protoblastenia (Lecanorales, Psoraceae) in Finland. MycoKeys 124: 193-226. https://doi.org/10.3897/mycokeys.124.162802

Scale bar: 0.5 mm.