Dendriscocaulon Nyl.
Details
Dendriscocaulon Nyl. (1885)
Dendriscocaulon Nyl.
Biostatus
Absent
New Zealand
Political Region
Ranft et al. (2018) synonymised all species of Dendriscocaulon, whichwere formerly regarded to be in New Zealand, in Sticta.
Nomenclature
Nyl.
Nyl.
1885
invalidly published
ICN
genus
Dendriscocaulon
Classification
Subordinates
Associations
Descriptions
Dendriscocaulon Nyl.
Thallus fruticose, dendroid, sometimes ± dorsiventral with rudimentary cyphellae on lower surface, robust to rather delicate, arising from a ± terete, root-like holdfast, corticolous, rarely saxicolous, 1-5(-10) cm tall. Branches terete to flattened, complex, entangled, ± corralloid at apices, subdichotomously divided below from 1-4 prominent, primary stems. Surface glabrous to ± uniformly pubescent or tomentose, pubescence slight, short, to thick and woolly, pale buff or yellow-brown, coralloid branchlets at apices grey, grey-brown or brown-black often with a reddish tinge, often prominently maculate or mottled (×10 lens). Medulla white. Photobiont blue-green, or , radially arranged below upper cortex in primary branches, ± homoiomerous towards apices of secondary coralloid branchlets. Apothecia unknown.
Taxonomic concepts
Historic biostatus
Collections
Notes
editorial
The type of "Dendriscocaulon" is now widely accepted as being the cyanobacterial state of the lichen Lobaria amplissima (Scop.) Forss. This has exposed taxonomic problems in the treatment of Southern Hemisphere free-living cyanobacterial states of fungi in the Lobariaceae currently assigned to "Dendriscocaulon" (see Armaleo & Clerc 1991; Jørgensen 1991, 1996b, 1997b, 1998a; Laundon 1995a, 1996; Heiðmarsson et al. 1997; Galloway 2001e; Thomas et al. 2002; Goffinet et al. 2003), where green-algal and cyanobacterial symbioses of the same fungus may show dramatically different morphologies, the green-algal state often being a species of Sticta. Since free-living cyanobacterial states appear to be physiological adaptations of certain lichen-forming fungi (Lobaria, Nephroma, Peltigera, Pseudocyphellaria, Sticta) to low-light, high-humidity habitats, it is not permitted (under the rules of the ICBN) to give separate names to the cyanobacterial states when they are known to form photosymbiodemes with a named green-algal lichen.
Metadata
09fa345e-8a25-4241-8d9b-c2aaab782818
scientific name
Names_Plants
1 January 2000
6 August 2009