Caloplaca saxicola

Caloplaca saxicola
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Fungi
Division: Ascomycota
Class: Lecanoromycetes
Subclass: Lecanoromycetidae
Order: Teloschistales
Family: Teloschistaceae
Genus: Caloplaca
Species: C. saxicola
Binomial name
Caloplaca saxicola

Caloplaca saxicola is a small bright orange crustose lichen that grows on rock all over the world.[1]:245-6 It is commonly called rock firedot lichen,[1]:245 jewel lichen or rock jewel lichen.

It has short, inflated looking elongate 1-2 mm and .3-.1 mm wide lobes that have an abrupt margin at the edge, and no prothallus.[2] It lacks isidea or soredia.[2] Apothecia may be immersed in the thallus or adnate to it, with rims of thallus-like tissue (lecanorine) with orange, flat, .4-1 mm wide epruinose discs.[2] Aptohecia develop near the lobe tips. C. ignea and C. impolita are similar but bigger, and have apothecia that form near the thallus center.[2]

In California, it is one of the most common saxicolous lichens.[1]:245-6 This lichen occurs over a portion of northern North America.[3] A specific example occurrence is within the northern reaches of the Canadian Boreal forests, where Black Spruce is a dominant tree.[4]

See also

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Field Guide to California Lichens, Stephen Sharnoff, Yale University Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0-300-19500-2
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region. Vol 3, Nash, T.H., Ryan, B.D., Gries, C., Bugartz, F., (eds.) 2001,
  3. Irwin M. Brodo, Sylvia Duran Sharnoff, Stephen Sharnoff and Susan Laurie-Bourque. 2001
  4. Michael Hogan. 2008. Black Spruce: Picea mariana, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. Nicklas Stromberg
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