Hydropunctaria oceanica A. Orange ss. str. (sequenced).
Specimens presented here have been sequenced (ITS2) and their sequences are identical to those of Hydropunctaria oceanica deposited vouchers (Orange 2012), with Pseudendoclonium submarinum as photobionts. They grow quite high in the tidal zone, at the basis of the "black belt" in schist cliffs (see picture), in sheltered zones where seepages and freshwater streamings occur.
This species is very difficult to identify when specimen is isolated or sampled for herbarium, however it is relatively easy to identify in the field with a bit of experience by observing the following combination :
- Habitat in estuaries or harbours fewly flapped by waves, towards the top of the tidal area, on rocks receiving freshwater incomes (rain or estuarine flow).
- Thallus thin, bottle-green when moist, brown-blackish, blackish with brown reflection when less moist, no prothallus but a thiner zone at margins typically brownish colored, brown chocolate, more or less cracked, mostly in the center.
- Perithecia quite prominent, with a variable shape but never angular, often with a pointing top (like nipples), arranged on the thallus irregularly and more or less densely.
- Always, according to our observations, with Hydropunctaria maura, whose thallus are more or less layered with those of H. oceanica.
Orange A. Semi-cryptic marine species of Hydropunctaria (Verrucariaceae, lichenized Ascomycota) from north-west Europe. The Lichenologist 44 (3): 299-320 (2012).
