Irish lichens

Melanohalea exasperata, Melanelia exasperata 		Order: Lecanorales       Family: Parmeliaceae

Species: Melanohalea exasperata

Growth type foliose.
Photos: On Salix twigs. Ballingeary area, Cork, SW Ireland.

Short olive-green, wrinkled and adpressed lobes with numerous warts with pale craters. Under-surface with rhizines. Usually fertile, red-brown apothecia with thick, warted margins. Papillae are flat-topped with pseudocyphellae at their tips. Isidia are absent.
The asci are 8-spored with simple spores, 9-12 x 5-6 µm. Microscope photographs below.

On well-lit twigs and branches of acid-barked deciduous trees, rarely occurs on trunks. Chemical reactions negative.

Sometimes host to an undescribed species of Abrothallus


Melanohalea exasperata


Melanelia exasperata

Microscope photographs
Melanohalea exasperata, apothecia section


Melanohalea exasperata, ascus and spores


Melanohalea exasperata, ascus and spores
Melanohalea exasperata. February and August 2009. (Previously Melanelia exasperata)

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