Anaptychia palmulata (aka “Shaggy-fringe Lichen”)

Location Summary

Substrate: On bark of hardwoods & white cedar or on shaded rocks.

Habitat: In Forests.

Identification Characteristics

Color:  Thallus greenish gray to brownish, often coarsely white scabrose on the lobe tips.  Lower surface pale.

Shape:  Flat to acending at the margins, forming rosettes 4 – 8 cm across; lobes rather elongate, often fan-like at the tips.  The margins covered with tiny, strap-shaped lobules but few cilia.  Underside with pale, unbranched rhizines that later become squarrose or brush-like.

Size:  0.7 – 1.5 (-2) mm wide

Apothecia: Common, 1-2 mm in diameter, with dark brown, nonpruinose disks & thick, prominent margins that sometimes develop small lobules.

Lookalikes: Physconia subpallida, an eastern lichen growing in similar habitats, also has a lobulate thallus, but the rhizines are black & squarrose when mature, the apothecia are pruinose; & the spores have unevenly thickened walls (Physcia-type).  Physconia americana is the western equivolent.  Melanelia panniformis is a saxicolous species with a black lower surface that typically produces masses of overlapping lobules on the central part of the thallus.  A rare lobulate Anaptychia, A. bryorum, grows on tundra soil & vegetation.  It is dark brown with some cilia along the lob margins, & the lobules are extremely narrow & frequently forked.

Bibliography: Lichens of North America, by Brodo, Sharnoff, & Sharnoff

Database Entry:  Distance Everheart 12-26-13