Polysporina simplex (Davies) Vezda

   Thallus insignificant and most often evanescent and inconspicuous, pale gray, pale greenish-gray, olive. Apothecia more or less submerged or sessile, often distorted by compression, 0.2-0.8 mm in diameter, scattered or in groups but most often in small fractures of the rock which makes them take for black mica on the granite, rough or umbonnated disc, rounded, black or black-reddish, crenellated margin which can come on the disc and give it a gyrous appearence, black. Utriform asci containing a hundred spores, 50-80 x 15-30 µm according to our measurements. Spores tiny, narrowly elliptical, 3-5 x 1-1.5 µm. Branched paraphyses. No characteristic chemical reactions. Photobiont: Chlorococcaceae. Species occurring on rough, acidic or weakly calcareous rocks of the xeric supralittoral zone but also inland (probably different taxon). N.B. On very exposed sea cliffs and in this case watch out for Trimmatothelopsis versipellis of similar appearance but whose apothecia are less deformed and not gyrous.

N.B. This "species" is sometimes synonymous by some authors to Sarcogyne privigna s.l., but this seems to concern only certain taxa of this group. The taxa presented here, which respond to the interpretations of the British authors, seem different from Sarcogyne privigna s.l. at least for the "marine" specimens, we therefore maintain them provisionally under this name while awaiting the further studies necessary to clarify the problems of the Acarospora, Polysporina, Sarcogyne, etc.

N.B. There is a group of taxa very similar to Polysporina simplex which are parasitic on crustose lichens, at least initially, see Polysporina canasiacensis Cf. and its forms, name provisionally adopted. These parasitic forms appear to be devoid of algae.