“Megalaria”
Crustose lichens containing a trebouxioid alga; thallus smooth, scurfy, areolate or sorediate; apothecia black or blue-black, generally constricted at the base, the rim formed of cylindrical hyphae in gelatinous, pigmented sheaths; hymenium of mostly simple paraphyses embedded in gel, the upper portions with dark greenish pigments; hypothecium dark green or olive brown; asci (of Megalaria sensu stricto) clavate, with a rather shallow tholus that reacts IKI+ medium blue and contains a pale axial mass that reaches through the length of the tholus; spores colourless, 4-8 per ascus, ellipsoid or lemon-shaped, 1-septate, the walls thick enough to see a gap between the surfaces (1000 x LM).
References: Galloway 2007.
“Megalaria” brunnescens Björk ined.
Soredia present, punctiform, pasty yellow green, mottled pale blue-green, and with the most exposed soredia turning brown, C+ red, KC+ red, K- or K+ yellowish, PD-; apothecia sessile or sometimes distinctly stalked with a receding rim and convex disc; upper hymenium dark brown; hymenium streaky brown, K+ red or purple, the brown pigments remaining; paraphyses netted; excipular hyphae densely netted; asci Porpidia-type; spores 12-18 × 6-8 µ; probably not correctly placed in Megalaria, but sharing with it the large black apothecia and elliptic, thick-walled, one-septate spores; known from six collections on moss and wood.
Reactions: Thallus C+ pink-orange.
Contents: Unknown.
Habitat: On rough bark or, more often, on mosses over bark, in humid forests, above the average winter snowpack. Lower elevations; elsewhere known also from upper elevation forests.
Similar Species: Biatora chrysantha and B. chrysanthoides are similar, but have mostly denser, more wide-spreading soredia uniformly coloured deeper yellowish, and grow within the winter snowpack.
Specimens: Goward 96-1109.
Local Status: Rare.
Notes: Though this species has apothecia and spores with the same general appearance as some species of Megalaria, this species has a different ascus type and excipular structure than those of Megalaria, and no positive spot test reactions are known from any other species in the genus. Known from numerous populations in coastal BC, rare in inland regions.