Irish lichens

Melanohalea exasperata, Melanelia exasperata 		Order: Lecanorales       Family: Parmeliaceae

Species: Melanohalea exasperata

Growth type foliose.
Photos: On Salix twigs. Ballingeary area, Cork, SW Ireland.

Short olive-green, wrinkled, adpressed lobes, the numerous warts with pale craters. Under-surface with rhizines. Usually fertile, red-brown apothecia with thick, warted margins. Papillae flat-topped with pseudocyphellae at their tips. Isidia absent. Asci are 8-spored, spores simple, 9-12 x 5-6 µm. Microscope photographs below.

On well-lit twigs and branches of acid-barked deciduous trees, rarely occurs on trunks. Chemical reactions negative.

Sometimes host to Abrothallus bertianus


Melanohalea exasperata

Melanelia exasperata

Microscope photographs
Melanohalea exasperata, apothecia section

Melanohalea exasperata, ascus and spores

Melanohalea exasperata, ascus and spores
Melanohalea exasperata. February and August 2009. (Previously Melanelia exasperata)

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