Hydropunctaria oceanica Cf. Orange

    Thallus crustose, thin, 35-100 µm thick, tightly appressed to the substratum, surface smooth or minutely warted,  with an incomplete cracks network, seldom delimiting complete areoles, dark green-bottle when moist, brown-blackish, brown blackish, dark grey-brown, blackish when dry, prothallus sometimes present, dull whitish to pale brownish, presence inside pseudo-cortex of a brown pigmentation. Perithecia conical-hemispherical conspicuous, not flattened, 0.25-0.50 mm diam., apex rounded, seldom slightly plane. Ascospores broadly ellipsoid, 13,5-16,5 x 7-8 µm (15-17 x 6-7 according to our measures). Crypto-species growing together with Hydropunctaria maura and at the same level on the foreshore, notably on rocks in estuaries and bays where freshwater inputs are found. Presently indistinguishable from the latter species with thin thalli using morphological approaches. Molecular analyses are required for further discrimination. However when colonies of the two species are coterminous (which is rather frequent) it is possible to distiguish them by the thallus thickness and the shape of perithecia. Hydropunctaria oceanica has a thinner thallus, less flattened and more pointed perithecia. On the pictures below, DNA marker analyses are in progress and usual restrictions apply here to our assignation to the Hydropunctaria oceanica species, see for comparison with sequenced exemplars: Hydropunctaria oceanica sequenced. See also Hydropunctaria amphibia and Hydropunctaria orae.*