TYPE. “Habitat in cortice arborum in India (Occid.?) Swartz” (Acharius 1810). LOCATION UNKNOWN. Swartz s.n. (H-ACH 886, lectotype designated by B. Staiger 2000).

Description. Life form: lichenized fungus.

Thallus crustose, pale olive, thin, continuous, epiphloeodal; surface smooth, ecorticate. Photobiont trentepohlioid alga; medulla with calcium oxalate crystals. Ascomata lirellae, immersed, densely aggregate and radially branched in stromata; stroma whitish, farinose to granular, with calcium oxalate crystals between lirellae, up to 3 mm diam., 0.2-0.3 mm thick, bordered white; disk concave to flat, black, epruinose; margin thin, distinct. Exciple entirely carbonized, divergent, epithecium thin, brown; hymenium inspersed, 60-80 μm high; paraphyses ~1.5 μm thick, tips branched and brown-pigmented. Asci 8-spored; ascospores elongate-ellipsoid, brown, 4-celled, 4-21 x 5-8 μm with thickened septa and rounded lumina, end cells larger, I+ red-brown.

Chemistry. None detected by TLC.

Substrate and Habitat. Corticolous on trees.

Distribution. East Asia, Australia, Oceania (Hawaii), Neotropical, north into southeastern North America; in North Carolina found in the Coastal Plain ecoregion.

Literature

Acharius, E. (1810) Lichenographia Universalis. Göttingen. 689 pp. (original description as Graphis tricosa).

Bungartz, F., R. Lücking & A. Aptroot. (2009) The lichen family Graphidaceae (Ostropales, Lecanoromycetes) in the Galapagos Islands. Nova Hedwigia 90: 1-44.

Joshi Y., Y.M. Lee, X.Y. Wang, Y.J. Koh & J.S. Hur (2009) New Record of the Existence of Sarcographa tricosa (Lichenized Ascomycota, Graphidaceace) in Korea. Mycobiology 37(2): 152-154.

Müller, J. (1887) Graphideae Féeanae. Mémoires de la Société de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Genève 29(8): 1-80.

Staiger B. (2002) Die Flechtenfamilie Graphidaceae. Studien in Richtung einer natürlicheren Gliederung. Bibliotheca Lichenologica 85: 1–526.