Bacidia diffracta S.Ekman

  • Family

    Ramalinaceae (Ascomycota)

  • Scientific Name

    Bacidia diffracta S.Ekman

  • Description

    Bacidia diffracta S. Ekman

    Opera Bot. 127: 72. 1996.

    Illustrations: Ekman (1996), figs. 40H, 43F.

    Thallus on bark, pale to medium green-gray, rarely pale tan (badly dried specimens?), superficial, consisting of sparse to crowded, globose to flattened and slightly irregular granules on a whitish "hypothallus" of hyphae mixed with upper cells of bark; granules 50-120 m across, with outer layer one hypha thick. Apothecia bright to dark orange-brown (yellowish to pale buff in pigment deficient forms), pruinose or not, scattered, sessile, ± flat to strongly convex, rounded or weakly lobed in old age, constricted at base, 0.5-1.2 mm across,; disk sometimes weakly white pruinose; margin concolorous with disk or slightly darker, even with disk or obscured in convex apothecia, often strongly white pruinose; young apothecia initially globose, paler, yellowish to pale orange-brown, often strongly pruinose, with marginal pruina radiately sulcate. Exciple distinctly two parted: inner, thicker part lens-shaped, pale yellowish, of dense, gelatinized, irregular hyphae with narrow lumina, to ca. 200 m thick; outer cup-like, of radiating hyphae with broader lumina, to ca. 100 m thick, with terminal cells only weakly expanded, sometimes containing large, colorless crystals, ± colorless outside, yellowish to yellowish brown inward; rim usually brownish; pigmented areas of both KOH+ rose. Hypothecium yellowish to yellow-brown, ca. 40-50 m thick, KOH+ rose above, KOH- below; hyphae irregular, not gelatinized, with some cells inflated (to ca. 6 m across or oval, 12-15 × 6-7 m). Epihymenium colorless to pale yellow-brown (KOH+ rose). Hymenium sometimes streaked with yellow-brown above (KOH+ rose), ca. 90-100 m thick. Paraphyses unbranched, not or slightly expanded at tips. Ascospores needle-like, 3-11-septate, 32-69 × 2-4 m (Ekman, 1996), not spirally arranged in ascus. Pycnidia pale brown (KOH-), ± globose, ca. 150 m across. Conidia filiform, curved, ca. 20 × 0.8 m.

    Chemistry: atranorin (sometimes only a trace), rarely with a trace of zeorin (Ekman, 1996).

    Parasymbiont: Opegrapha diffracticola, see below.

  • Sorry, no descriptions available for this record.