Melampilidium Stirt.
Thallus crustose, ecorticate, thin, cracked. Photobiont green, Trentepohlia. Apothecia black to brown-black, small, with a thin, distinct, proper margin. Paraphyses distinct, colourless, filiform, densely conglutinate, thickened at apices. Asci pyriform with a double wall, amyloid annulus at tip of endoascus, extruded on discharge of spores. Hypothecium brownish or pale. Ascospores 4-8 per ascus, large, colourless, muriform.
Melampilidium an apparently monotypic, corticolous genus included in the family Lecanactidaceae, was originally described as a species of Lecidea, L. amphorodes Stirton [ Rep. Trans. Glasgow Soc. Field Nat. 1: 19 (1873)] but later classified as Melaspilea [Stirton T.N.Z.I. 6: 238 (1874); J. Linn. Soc. Lond. Bot. 14: (1875)]. An earlier taxon, Melaspilea metabola Nyl., from New Caledonia was shown by Müller Argoviensis [ Bull. Herb. Boissier 2, App. 1: 79 (1894)] to be conspecific with L. amphorodes and he made the combination Melampilidium metabolum (Nyl.) Müll. Arg. In discussing Melaspilea amphorodes Stirton (1875, loc. cit. ) comments ".. it is difficult to assign the generic place of this curious and interesting lichen. The genus under which it has been placed answers best; but the definition as given by Nylander must be extended in order to embrace it, especially as regards the spores and spermatia, the latter being oval and .002 × .0015 millim. I feel inclined to constitute it the type of a new genus under the name of Melampilidium".
