Lecania aipospila (Wahlenb.) Th. Fr.

   Thallus crustose, covered with contiguous, coarse, knobbly papillae and warts, 1 mm tall and wide or more in height giving it a very rough appearance, black-brown, bluish-gray, lead gray, dark greyish-brown, blackish, sometimes with blue-purplish tinges, hypothallus sometimes present, whitish with a well defined margin slightly lobed. Apothecia more or less numerous, often at the end of the papillae, sessile or at the top of a pseudo-stipe, 0.5 to 1 mm in diameter, more or less convex discs, brown-red, brown-black, blackish, with a concolorous margin at the thallus or a little paler, distinct but sometimes not very persistent. Utriform asci, 32-50 x 16-20 µm according to our measurements. Colorless, elliptical spores, 1-septate, 9-14 x 4-6 µm according to the literature, 10-14 x 4-5.5 µm according to our measurements. Monilliform paraphyses. Negative colored chemical reactions. Photobiont: chlorococcaceae. Rather rare and localized species coming on the siliceous rocks of the seaside serving as perch for birds, most often in areas of runoff, sometimes in large colonies visible from afar by their dark appearance. NB The old examples abraded from horizontal surfaces can be difficult to identify, moreover this species is extraordinarily variable according to its exposure and its situation on the rocks: vertical faces, horizontal faces, in the shade or in the sun, subjected to water flows. water, etc. see; Lecania aipospila forme stérile and Lecania aipospila forme sombre.

NB To be separated from Lecania fructigena which occurs in the same stations, with a less dark and more yellowish thallus not clearly delimited, with fewer papillae, smaller and narrowed at the base a darker top and apothecia more often stipitate, but this species is very similar and the characters used to separate it are crossed and unreliable, only the different chemical composition seems to be able to be used (with very relative certainty!): Lecania aipospila contains 2 terpenes extractable by acetone and Lecania fructigena does not does not contain (which means that some authors make 2 chemotypes and not 2 different species). Here we have used, pending the results of the current chemical analysis, the characteristics of the height of the papillae and the staining of the hypothalle and our identification should be considered provisional. Watch out for Lecanora poliophaea with single spores, paler papillate thallus and larger, orange-brown apothecia with a persistent crenate margin and Lecanora praepostera with less warty thallus and blackish-brown apothecia.