TYPE. CANADA. Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland, near Whitbourne, 1894, A.C. Waghorne 8a (GB, lectotype selected by Dibben (1980); H, PH, isolectotypes).

Description. Life form: lichenized fungus.

Thallus crustose, yellow-grayish, epiphloedal, thin to moderately thick, the margin +/- entire; surface smooth or tuberculate, rarely rugose-plicate, shiny, continuous to rimose, poorly areolate. Vegetative diaspores absent. Photobiont chlorococcoid alga. Fertile verrucae lecanorate (less often sorediate), +/- concolorous with the thallus, few to locally numerous, occasionally crowded, rarely fused (2-3), (0.4)-0.9-(1.8) mm in diameter. Disks black, rarely pink or brown, level to less often sunken in older fruiting verrucae, frequently gray- or white-pruinose, (0.2)-0.6-(1.0) mm wide; verrucal margins heavily crenulate, more often ruptured, exposing the medulla which appears granulose-sorediate, forming a false secondary edge to the fruiting body. Ascomata pertusaroid apothecia, 1(-3) per verruca, (0.32)-0.61-(0.79) mm diam. Epithecium brown to blackish, K-; hymenium hyaline to pink; hypothecium hyaline to pallid. Asci clavate, (24-)42(-63) x (96-)153(-226) μm, 1(-2)-spored; ascospores simple, hyaline, cylindrical, often immature, (22-)38(-54) x (60-)118(-163) μm, wall and lumen K-; spore wall smooth, (2-)4(-6) μm thick. Pycnidia known; conidia 0.5-1.0 x 7-9 μm.

Chemistry. Cortex UV-, KC-, C-, PD-; medulla K+ yellow turning red, KC-, C-, PD+ yellow; norstictic and connorstictic acid detected by TLC.

Substrate and Habitat. Corticolous on hardwood trees.

Distribution. Europe, North America; in North Carolina found in the Blue Ridge ecoregion.

Literature

Dibben, M.J. (1980) The Chemosystematics of the Lichen Genus Pertusaria in North America North of Mexico. Publications in Biology and Geology No. 5, Milwaukee Public Museum Press, Milwaukee. 162 pp.

Hulting, J. (1896) Beiträge zur Flechtenflora Nordamerikas. Hedwigia 35: 186-193 (original description as Pertusaria waghornei).

Lendemer, J.C. & R.C. Harris (2017) Nomenclatural changes for North American members of the Variolaria-group necessitated by the recognition of Lepra (Pertusariales). The Bryologist 120(2): 182-189.