Thamnogalla D.Hawksw.
Type : * Thamnogalla crombiei (Mudd) D.Hawksw. [= * Endocarpon crombiei Mudd]
Description : Lichenicolous. Ascomata perithecia, immersed, pale olivaceous or subhyaline, ostiolate; walls thin, composed of layers of hyphae, subhyaline to pale olivaceous. Hamathecium of paraphyses, numerous, persistent, filiform, unbranched, septate. Asci unitunicate, cylindrical to elongate-clavate, I−, 8-spored. Ascospores ellipsoidal, simple, hyaline, often guttulate, smooth, without a surrounding perispore.
Thamnogalla is a monospecific genus included in the Odontotremataceae (Eriksson et al. 2004). It occurs as a parasite or weak parasymbiont on the widespread sterile lichen Thamnolia vermicularis, and was at first thought to represent fruits of this lichen (Massalongo 1856; Minks 1874). However, Arnold (1874) recognised it as a lichenicolous fungus and named it Nesolechia vermicularis, without realising that William Mudd (1865: 36) had earlier described a fungus on Thamnolia as Endocarpon crombii that was the same as his taxon and, moreover, accorded with Massalongo's description of the so-called fruits of Thamnolia. The subsequent taxonomic history of this fungus and the nomenclatural difficulties surrounding it were outlined by Hawksworth (1980b), who founded the new genus Thamnogalla to accommodate it, his name reflecting both the host and the immersed, gall-like nature of the fungus.
