Bacidia genuensis B. de Lesd. resurrected

Abstract

The species described as Bacidia genuensis is transferred here to Bacidina as B. genuensis (Ramalinaceae, Lecanorales, lichenized Ascomycota). An updated morphological description is provided. The species is characterized by mostly blackish apothecia on a thick, microsquamulose thallus, a crystal-inspersed proper exciple that is mostly prosoplechtenchymatous, an ascus with a wide and dome-shaped axial body and an expanded c-layer (resulting in a thin, amyloid d-layer), a blue-green pigment in the epihymenium, proper exciple, and pycnidial wall, and an orange-brown, K+ intensifying pigment in the hypothecium and sometimes proper exciple. This combination of characters sets the species apart from its potentially close relatives Bacidina egenula and B. indigens, as well as the superficially similar, but more distantly related, Toniniopsis bagliettoana. Bacidina genuensis is currently known from a few sites in northern Italy, where it inhabits weathered and apparently shaded mortar of masonry.