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Opegrapha
Genus of lichens in the family Opegraphaceae From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Opegrapha is a genus of mostly lichen-forming fungi in the family Opegraphaceae. These lichens form crusty patches on bark, rock, or other lichens, and are easily recognized by their distinctive black, slit-like or rounded fruiting bodies that look like tiny scribbles or dashes on the surface. The genus includes more than 100 species found worldwide, with most partnering with orange-pigmented green algae, though some live as parasites on other lichens.
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Description
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Opegrapha species form a crust-like thallus that adheres tightly to bark, rock or even the surface of other lichens. This crust may be paper-thin or rather thick and is often cracked into a mosaic of small areoles. Colours range from chalk white through shades of grey and mauve to dark brown or olive-green, and a narrow dark prothallus sometimes outlines individual colonies. Most members partner with the orange-pigmented green alga Trentepohlia, but a few live parasitically on lichens that employ different algal partners. Powdery reproductive patches (soralia) are uncommon and, when present, remain discrete rather than fusing into large swathes.[2]
The sexual fruit-bodies are characteristically lirellate apothecia—elongated, often branching slits that resemble tiny scribbles in the thallus. In bark-dwelling or lichenicolous forms these slits may round off into short dashes or nearly circular discs. Each apothecium sits flush with, or slightly above, the substrate; it lacks a true rim of thallus tissue, though a thin pseudo-margin may form. A tough black wall (excipulum) encloses the fertile layer and usually remains opaque, so the exposed surface looks like a narrow, glossy cleft; when thin sections are treated with the K spot test the internal tissues turn olive or reddish-brown, a useful field test. Inside, a gel-filled layer of branched, cross-walled filaments (paraphysoids) weaves among the club-shaped asci. These asci split apart along two walls when the eight ascospores are released—a mechanism called fissitunicate dehiscence—and a faint blue-staining ring at the tip can be seen with iodine staining. The spindle-shaped spores bear multiple cross-walls, start colourless and may develop a reddish-brown, grainy coat as they age. Minute black pycnidia, partially sunk in the crust, exude colourless curved conidia that provide an alternative means of dispersal. Despite the chemical diversity found in many roccellaceous lichens, Opegrapha generally lacks secondary lichen products.[2]
Taken together—crustose thallus, slit-like or rounded black apothecia with a pigmented excipulum, branched paraphysoids, multiseptate spores and fissitunicate asci—these traits distinguish Opegrapha from superficially similar genera such as Graphis (unbranched paraphyses and iodine-positive spores), Enterographa (much narrower, clustered apothecia) and Schismatomma (persistent thalline margin). Conidial size and shape are especially diagnostic at the species level, as is the number of spore septa. Ongoing molecular work shows that traditional morphological boundaries between Opegrapha and allied genera (e.g. Lecanactis, Lecanographa) need further refinement, but the suite of characters outlined above still provides a practical field definition of the genus.[2]
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Species
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Species include:[3]
- Opegrapha agelaea Fée
- Opegrapha agelaeina Jatta
- Opegrapha agelaeoides Nyl.
- Opegrapha anguinella (Nyl.) Ertz & Diederich
- Opegrapha anomea Nyl.
- Opegrapha areniseda Nyl.
- Opegrapha astraea Tuck.
- Opegrapha aurantiaca B.de Lesd.
- Opegrapha bisokeana Ertz
- Opegrapha blakii Ertz & Diederich
- Opegrapha bonplandii Fée
- Opegrapha borbonica Ertz
- Opegrapha brevis Coppins
- Opegrapha brevissima Kalb & Hafellner
- Opegrapha briancoppinsii S.Y.Kondr., Lőkös & Hur
- Opegrapha bryoriae Zhurb.
- Opegrapha buelliae Zhurb.
- Opegrapha candida Müll.Arg.
- Opegrapha cesareensis Nyl.
- Opegrapha chapsae Etayo
- Opegrapha cladoniicola Ertz & Diederich
- Opegrapha corinnae Egea & Ertz
- Opegrapha corticola Coppins & P.James
- Opegrapha deblockiae Ertz
- Opegrapha dekeselii Ertz
- Opegrapha demutata Nyl.
- Opegrapha diaphoriza Nyl.
- Opegrapha diffracticola R.C.Harris & Ladd
- Opegrapha dolomitica (Arnold) Clauzade & Cl.Roux ex Torrente & Egea
- Opegrapha ectolechiacearum Matzer & R.Sant.
- Opegrapha enterographae Etayo
- Opegrapha epiporina Matzer
- Opegrapha erosa Egea & Ertz
- Opegrapha foreaui (Moreau) Hafellner & R.Sant.
- Opegrapha fumosa Coppins & P.James
- Opegrapha fuscothallina Lücking & Matzer
- Opegrapha geographicola (Arnold) Hafellner
- Opegrapha gilmorei P.M.McCarthy & Elix
- Opegrapha granulosa S.Joseph & G.P.Sinha
- Opegrapha grossulina Müll.Arg.
- Opegrapha gyrophorica F.Seavey & J.Seavey
- Opegrapha hafellneri E.Zimm., Etayo & F.Berger
- Opegrapha halophila Brodo & Tønsberg[4]
- Opegrapha heliabravoa Herrera-Camp. & Lücking
- Opegrapha hellespontica Vondrák & Kocourk.
- Opegrapha herbarum Mont.
- Opegrapha inalbescens (Stirt.) Müll.Arg.
- Opegrapha insidens (J.Steiner) S.Y.Kondr.
- Opegrapha interveniens Müll.Arg.
- Opegrapha intrusa Stirt
- Opegrapha invadens Etayo
- Opegrapha keyensis F.Seavey & J.Seavey
- Opegrapha lacteella Müll.Arg.
- Opegrapha lambinonii Sérus.
- Opegrapha lamyi (O.J.Rich. ex Nyl.) Triebel
- Opegrapha leptocarpoides Zahlbr.
- Opegrapha leptoplacella (Müll.Arg.) Vězda
- Opegrapha leucinia Müll.Arg. ex Shirley
- Opegrapha leucoplaca Müll.Arg.
- Opegrapha levidensis Willey
- Opegrapha lichenicola G.Thor, Lücking & Tat. Matsumoto
- Opegrapha lithyrga Ach.
- Opegrapha lopezariae Etayo & Sipman
- Opegrapha luzonensis Sérus.
- Opegrapha maldiveana Ertz
- Opegrapha maligna Triebel
- Opegrapha megagonidia C.Knight
- Opegrapha melanospila Müll.Arg.
- Opegrapha mesophlebia Nyl.
- Opegrapha microcycla Tuck.
- Opegrapha minutula Müll.Arg.
- Opegrapha moroziana Lendemer
- Opegrapha multipuncta Coppins & P.James
- Opegrapha niveoatra (Borrer) J.R.Laundon
- Opegrapha nyungweana Ertz
- Opegrapha parasitica (A.Massal.) H.Olivier
- Opegrapha paraxanthodes Nyl.
- Opegrapha pauciexcipulata Aptroot & Yazıcı
- Opegrapha perturbans Follmann[5]
- Opegrapha pertusariicola Coppins & P.James
- Opegrapha phaeophysciae R.Sant., Diederich, Ertz & Christnach
- Opegrapha physciaria (Nyl.) D.Hawksw. & Coppins
- Opegrapha prosodea Ach.
- Opegrapha protocetrarica F.Seavey & J.Seavey
- Opegrapha protuberans Zahlbr.
- Opegrapha pulvinata Rehm
- Opegrapha ramisorediata Aptroot & M.Cáceres[6]
- Opegrapha ravenelii (Tuck.) Tehler
- Opegrapha reactiva (Alstrup & D.Hawksw.) Etayo & Diederich
- Opegrapha reinkellae Follmann[5]
- Opegrapha romsiae S.Y.Kondr. & Kudratov
- Opegrapha rotunda Hafellner
- Opegrapha rubefacta Räsänen
- Opegrapha rupestris Pers.
- Opegrapha salmonea Ertz & Diederich
- Opegrapha saxicola Ach.
- Opegrapha serusiauxii Lücking
- Opegrapha sorediifera P.James
- Opegrapha sphaerophoricola Isbrand & Alstrup
- Opegrapha stellanigra Etayo
- Opegrapha stellata C.Knight
- Opegrapha stereocaulicola Alstrup & D.Hawksw.
- Opegrapha strigulae R.Sant. ex Matzer & R.Sant.
- Opegrapha subdictyospora M.Cáceres, E.L.Lima & Aptroot
- Opegrapha subdimidiata Ertz
- Opegrapha submaritima Hafellner
- Opegrapha suecica Källsten ex G.Thor
- Opegrapha thelotrematis Coppins
- Opegrapha trassii S.Y.Kondr. & Coppins
- Opegrapha trochodes Coppins, F.Berger & Ertz
- Opegrapha tuxtlensis Herrera-Camp. & Lücking
- Opegrapha ugandensis Ertz
- Opegrapha ulleungdoensis S.Y.Kondr., Lőkös & Hur
- Opegrapha umbellulariae Zahlbr.
- Opegrapha vermicellifera (J.Kunze) J.R.Laundon
- Opegrapha verseghyklarae S.Y.Kondr., Lőkös & Hur[7]
- Opegrapha vulgata Ach.
- Opegrapha vulpina Vondrák, Kocourk. & Tretiach[8]
- Opegrapha xanthonica Aptroot & M.Cáceres
- Opegrapha xerica Torrente & Egea
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References
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