Basionym: Huriella flakusii Wilk, The Lichenologist 52: 39. 2020; MB#831528.

For a detailed description of the original material from Peru refer to the protologue published in Wilk (2020).

Ecology and distribution. The species was originally described from material collected ‘... on siliceous rock in arid montane habitats, at elevations of c. 3500 m in the Colca Canyon region in southern Peru. ...’ (Wilk 2020, p. 39). Wilk (2020) cites two additional specimens, also from semi-desert areas in the mountains of Peru. In Galapagos, the three specimens identified as this species using molecular tools occur also at high altitude. All three were collected near the crater rim of Volcán Alcedo, a habitat that occasionally emerges from the cloud forests below, at the upper end of the Galapagos humid zone.

Notes. Morphologically, Galapagos specimens do not closely resemble the illustration of S. flakusii published in Wilk (2020) of the holotype material described from Peru. The thallus color is not as reddish; instead Galapagos specimens are a deep yellow-orange. The concentration of anthraquinones in Teloschistaceae is generally known to vary considerably, the amount  correlated to habitat exposure, cortical pigments offering protection against excess UV-light. Apothecia of the Galapagos specimens are not as conspicuously deformed as the specimen illustrated in Wilk (2020). This holotype from Peru has a poorly developed, inconspicuous thallus, which is almost absent. Wilk (2020) emphasizes, however, that the morphology of the
Peruvian specimens can be very variable, from distinctly ‘... squamulose to strongly reduced and almost invisible’. The Galapagos specimens have distinct, relatively well-developed thalli, composed of minute subsquamulose to lobulate rosettes. Their anatomy does not markedly differ from the Peruvian specimens. Wilk (2020) did not examine the chemistry of S. flakusii with HPLC, but mentions that apothecia and thalli react K+purple. We only recently noticed that the ITS sequences from the three Galapagos specimens cited below closely match those published in Wilk (2020). Previously the material had been included among Galapagos specimens of Squamulea subsoluta/squamosa. The three specimens that we analyzed for chemistry had chemosyndrome A.