Pseudochapsa lueckingii

Pseudochapsa lueckingii is a species of corticolous (bark-dwelling), crustose lichen in the family Graphidaceae.^[2] It is known only from a single collection in São Paulo, Brazil.

Pseudochapsa lueckingii
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Fungi
Division:	Ascomycota
Class:	Lecanoromycetes
Order:	Graphidales
Family:	Graphidaceae
Genus:	Pseudochapsa
Species:	P. lueckingii
Binomial name
Pseudochapsa lueckingii (Kalb) Parnmen, Lücking & Lumbsch (2012)
Synonyms[1]
Chapsa lueckingii Kalb (2009)

Taxonomy

The lichen was first formally described as a new species in 2009 by Klaus Kalb. He collected the type specimen from a dense and humid rainforest at an elevation of 800 m (2,600 ft), where it was found growing on the smooth bark of a deciduous tree. The species epithet honours his colleague Robert Lücking, "for his outstanding contributions to tropical lichenology".^[3] The taxon was transferred in 2012 to Pseudochapsa, a segregate genus of Chapsa, characterised by the brown colour of its excipulum.^[1]

Description

Pseudochapsa lueckingii has a smooth, olive-green thallus with a 3–10 μm-thick, hyaline cortical layer. It has large, more-or-less round apothecia measuring 0.7–2 mm in diameter with a pale brown disc covered with white pruina. Ascospores typically have between 5 and 7 transverse septa, and measure 17–25 by 6–7 μm. The lichen contains stictic acid as a major metabolite and minor amounts of constictic acid. Kalb suggests that the Panamanian species Pseudochapsa pseudoschizostoma is closely related; this species differs from P. lueckingii in lacking a cortex and in its much smaller apothecia.^[3]