TYPE. UNITED STATES. West Virginia, Cass, Cold Run, on scarlet oak [Quercus rubra], 1928, F.W. Gray (FH, isotype).

Description. Life form: lichenized fungus.

[Translated and modified from Motyka (1936-1938)] Thallus fruticose, in type ~5(-8) cm long and broad, bushy, deep yellowish-green, almost blackening at the primary branches, elsewhere paler but always very dark, opaquely glossy, as if varnished, slightly thickened at the base, rigid and darkened, again sparingly branched subsympodially, with erect axils and diverging branches. Branches slightly irregularly curved, ~1.3(-2) mm long, uniformly thick at the tips, articularly broken, with irregular fissures, narrow, obtuse but not constricted, ± smooth, uneven, slightly pitted, very irregularly coarsely papillate or tuberculate, tubercles rare to dense, short or long, sometimes growing in branches, semi-globose, subcylindrical or even verrucose, dull, concolorous or slightly paler. Lateral branches very irregular, quite rare, growing from some tubercles, perpendicular, thick, 2-10 mm long, rarely longer, straight, very indistinctly constricted at the base, inflated above, very obtuse at the tip, almost always coarsely tuberculated and frequently broken into rings. The tips almost always with apothecia. Thallus stratified: cortex ~80 μm thick, soft, outer part green, inner part hyaline; medulla ~370 μm, white, loose; axis ~380 μm diam., white, slightly irregular in circumference. Ascomata lecanorine apothecia, abundant on branch tips, rigid and firm, ~1 cm diam, thalline cup surface smooth to wrinkled, ciliate; cilia short, poorly developed; disk flesh colored, flat, center reticulate or wrinkled. Asci clavate, 8-spored; ascopsores simple, hyaline, 9-10 x 6 μm.

Chemistry. Medulla K-

Substrate and habitat. Corticolous on branches.

Distribution. North America; in North Carolina found in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge ecoregions.

Note.  According to Hale (1962), this species appears to be a depauperate form of U. strigosa, a notably difficult species complex.

Literature

Hale, M.E., Jr. (1962) The chemical strains of Usnea strigosa. The Bryologist 65(4): 291-294.

Motyka, J. (1936-1938) Lichenum generis Usnea studium monographicum, pars systematica 1-2: 1-651.