Catillaria
A genus of crustose lichens containing trebouxioid algae; thallus smooth, areolate, verruculose, or immersed, grey, brown, green or blackish; apothecia with a non-algal rim that more resembles the disc than the thallus, both being blackish or brown; exciple formed of cylindrical hyphae arrayed fan-like as seen in cross section; hymenium (in Catillaria sensu stricto) formed of mostly simple, gel-embedded paraphyses that are distinctly swollen at the tip; asci (of Catillaria sensu stricto), narrowly clavate, with an elongated tholus that reacts IKI+ dark blue with no apparent internal structures, but other ascus types are seen in species also attributed to the genus, the species reported here however, have other ascus types, see below; spores colourless, 8-16 per ascus, always with a single septum.
Note: Neither of the following species belongs in Catillaria in the strict sense, but warrant placement in genera yet to be unpublished.
References: Purvis et al. 1992; Printzen & Tønsberg 1999; Spribille 2006; Spribille & Björk 2008.
| 1a. | Paraphyses mostly more or less straight, most not branched; asci like Porpidia-type; spores 7-14 × 3-5 µ; growing on soft wood; to be sought …[“Catillaria” erysiboides (Nyl.) Th. Fr.] |
| 1b. | Paraphyses gnarled and often branched; asci Bacidia-type or Catillaria-type; spores 8.5-10.5 × 4-6 µ; asci Catillaria-type; known from one collection on a decaying Fomitopsis in subboreal forest in central BC …Catillaria minuta ined. |
Catillaria minuta Björk ined.
Thallus thin, whitish, smooth or minutely granular, light green or creamy white, with an in conspicuous light grey prothallus; apothecia 0.15-0.3 mm wide, dark brown; exciple of elliptical cells, these weakly arrayed fan-like as seen in cross section, the interior part of the exciple with a distinct algal layer continuous below the hypothecium; hymenium colourless except in upper portions, where coloured by dark brown pigments in the walls of the paraphyses, which are 2-3.8 µ at the tip; hypothecium colourless; asci Catillaria-type, with an IKI+ dark blue tholus much higher than wide early in development, lacking any obvious internal structures; spores 8 per ascus, 1-septate, broadly elliptic-fusiform, 8.5-10.5 × 4-6 µ.
Reactions: Spot tests all negative.
Contents: Unknown.
Habitat: On decaying polypores over Betula papyrifera trunk in a swamp. Lower elevations.
Similar Species: Catinaria atropurpurea has thicker-walled spores and lacks an algal layer in the apothecial rim.
Specimens: Björk 14394.
Local Status: Rare.
Notes: Known only from the study area.