Massalongia Körb. (1855)

Data Set Maintenance: Data set standard item. Data set author(s): Rambold G. Data set reviewer(s): Scholz P. (02-05-15); not revised; to be published after submission.

Nomenclature: Current taxonomic status: accepted or basionymous. Taxonomic rank: genus. Number of known taxa within this rank: 2. Massalongia. Peltigeraceae Dumort. (1822); Peltigerineae; Lecanorales.

Type Information: Type: Massalongia carnosa (Dicks.) Körb.

Taxonomic Literature: Galloway D.J., Flora of New Zealand Lichens: i-lxxiii, 1-662 [263],
Wellington (1985); Henssen A., Can. J. Bot. 41: 1331-1346 (1963);
Keuck G., Biblioth. Lichenol. 6: 1-175 (1977); Nash T.H. in: Nash T.H. III et al. (eds) Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region vol. 1, 272-274, Tempe (2002); Purvis O.W. in: Purvis
O.W. et al. (eds), The Lichen Flora of Great Britain and Ireland,
London (1992).

Biogeography: Checklist records: Austria, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, New Zealand, Sonoran Desert, Sweden and Norway, and United States and Canada (continental).

Ecology: Biotroph; lichenized; terricolous or bryophytic; substrate non-calciferous.

Lichen Photobionts: Primary photobiont present; cyanobacterial. Primary photobiont taxonomy: Nostoc; Nostocaceae; Nostocales, Cyanobacteria, Prokaryota. Secondary photobiont absent.

Thallus: Crustose or foliose, squamulose, placodioid, or granular, lobed. Upper Surface: Green, brown, olive, or brownish yellow; special structures absent or present:; not pseudocyphellate; eciliate; without hairs; not isidate or isidiate; not sorediate; not cephalodiate; lobulate; without granules granules, without thalloconidia thalloconidia. Lower Surface: Attached by the whole lower surface; special structures absent.

Reproduction Strategy: Only known as sterile, asexually reproducing form or with sexual (and possible asexual) stages. Ascocarps: Apothecioid, orbicular, forming all across the thallus surface or directly at the thallus margin, soon sessile to substipitate. Margin: Prominent; external filaments absent. Periphyses: Absent. Epithecium: Apical cells brown. Interascal Hyphae: Present, scarcely branched to distinctly branched, not or scarcely anastomosed.

Asci: Tholus thickened, amyloid, with amyloid cap; dehiscence lecanoralean.

Ascospores: c. 8 per ascus, broadly ellipsoid, ellipsoid, fusiform, or oblong, 11-32 µm long, 4.5-9 µm wide, obtuse or aciculate; septa present; transversally septate, 1-3-transversally septate; wall thin, not thickened at the septum, hyaline, in Lugol's Solution negative, wall not ornamented.

Conidiomata: Absent resp. not observed or present; pycnidial; immersed, formed all accross the thallus surface.

Conidia: Bifusiform or bacilliform; not branched; aseptate; cell wall hyaline.

Secondary Metabolites: Not detected.

(report generated 04.Okt.2007)