Scoliciosporum A.Massal.
Type : Scoliciosporum holomelaenum (Flörke) A.Massal. [=Scoliciosporum umbrinum (Ach.) Arnold
Description : Thallus crustose, glaucous-green to brownish black, thin, ecorticate, granular-scurfy, resembling Desmococcus. Prothallus absent. Photobiont green, chlorococcoid, often forming goniocysts. Ascomata apothecia, at first plane, soon convex, sessile, constricted at base, whitish, yellowish, pale-brown to black. Thalline exciple absent. Proper exciple noticeable in young fruits, excluded at maturity, of radiating, branched and anastomosing hyphae, pale or colourless. Epithecium colourless, brownish, blue-green or olivaceous, sometimes inspersed with granules. Hymenium colourless, olivaceous, blue-green or brown; I+ blue. Hypothecium colourless or pale. Hamathecium of paraphyses, septate, branched and anastomosing in a gelatinous matrix, resembling excipular hyphae, apices not or slightly thickened. Asci 8-spored, broadly clavate or cylindrical-clavate, Lecanora -type (Malcolm & Galloway 1997: 186) with a broad apical cushion. Ascospores acicular, sickle-shaped or bent spirally, rarely elongate-spindle-shaped and attenuated towards one end, straight or curved, colourless, 3-multiseptate, the septa thin and often indistinct. Conidiomata pycnidia, spherical, ±immersed to emergent, wall dark-brown to colourless. Conidia of two types: macroconidia bacillar, straight or slightly curved; microconidia curved.
Scoliciosporum is a genus of c. 10 species worldwide (Ekman & Tønsberg 2004), included in the family Lecanoraceae (Eriksson et al. 2004; Pennycook & Galloway 2003). It is distinguished from Bacidia and Bacidina by the poorly developed proper exciple consisting of paraphysis-like hyphae; the abundantly branched and anastomosing paraphyses; the wide axial body reaching through the entire d-layer of the tholus; and the presence of some deviating paraphyses terminating in swollen apices that are surrounded by a dark-pigmented cap (Ekman 1996a). Two species are recorded from New Zealand (Malcolm & Vězda 1996a, 1996b). In addition, an undescribed, athalline species, having a distinctive blue-black epithecium and characteristic sigmoid to sickle-shaped ascospores [18–21(–25) × 1–2 μm], occurs on subalpine rocks in high-rainfall areas of Fiordland where it associates with Placopsis murrayi (q.v.).
