Fluffy Dust Lichen

Appearance

Thallus: crustose, leprose, irregular, indeterminate to determinate, usually continuous; sometimes becoming partly loose from the substrate, sometimes with delimited sublobes upper surface: bright green, greenish gray, or whitish gray, white in eroded patches, dull, even or wrinkled soredia: fine to coarse fluffy, up to 100(-200) µm in diam., usually with long projecting hyphae up to 0.1 mm long or sometimes lacking on exposed parts of thallus surface medulla: distinct, white lower surface: white, formed by lower part of medulla, tomentum not evident Spot tests: thallus K- or + yellow, C-, KC-, P+ orange. Secondary metabolites: atranorin, zeorin and stictic acid with satellites.

Naming

Lepraria finkii (B. de Lesd.) R.C. Harris
Crocynia aliciae Hue
Crocynia americana B. de Lesd.
Crocynia andrewii B. de Lesd.
Crocynia finkii B. de Lesd.
Crocynia mollissima B. de Lesd.
Lepraria lobificans Nyl.
Leproloma lobificans (Nyl.) Boistel

Distribution

World distribution: Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and New Zealand

Status

Global Status: G5

United States: North Carolina (SNR), Pennsylvania (SNR), Wyoming (SNR)
Canada: Alberta (S2), Manitoba (S2S4), Ontario (S5), Prince Edward Island (SNR), Quebec (SNR), Yukon Territory (SNR)

Habitat

Substrate and ecology: on soil, over mosses, on bark, in moderately shaded and dry niches on soil banks, rock overhangs, and tree trunks.

Reproduction

Soredia