Topelia
Type : Topelia rosea (Servít) P.M.Jørg. & Vězda [Microglaena rosea Servít]
Description : Thallus crustose, often poorly developed and delimited. Photobiont Trentepohlia, cells 122–15 × 10–12 μm. Ascomata perithecia, 0.2–0.6 mm diam., carneous to ochraceous, darker in the upper parts, completely black in one species; with a narrow, punctiform pore which may widen at maturity giving an apothecioid appearance. Perithecia partly immersed in thallus, but always clearly protruding. Exciple 30–60 μm thick, hyaline to brownish black, of short-celled hyphae ±cellular, particularly in upper and inner parts. Periphyses short-celled, stiff, up to 45 × 2 μm, especially well-developed around pore. Hymenium I+ blue-green, rapidly turning red-brown. Hamathecium of slender paraphyses, 200 × 1.5(–2) μm, flexuous, unbranched and without any apical thickening, some intimately associated with asci. Asci narrowly cylindrical, 100–180 × 12–18 μm, tapering apically, unitunicate, thin-walled, without apical thickening or apparatus. Ascopores 8 per ascus, hyaline, thin-walled, muriform.
Chemistry : TLC negative.
Topelia, a genus of five species (Kirk et al. 2001), doubtfully included in the family Stictidaceae (Eriksson et al. 2004 Pennycook & Galloway 2004), was described to accommodate a small number of pyrenocarpous lichens some of which had earlier been mistakenly attributed to Clathroporina and Microglaena (Jørgensen & Vězda 1984). Species are known from southern and western Europe, Cuba, Central America and California (McCarthy 1993c; Nash & Nimis 2002). One species is known from New Zealand, the first record of the genus in the Southern Hemisphere (McCarthy 1993c).
