Syst. Ascomycetum 11, 1: 14 (1992).

Protolog: Data lacking.

Protolog type data: Cuba: Pinar del Río Prov., Viñales, S. part of Valle de San Vicente (W. of the ridge with Cueva de San Miguel), on the stem of a tree, 10.i.1989, Ove D. Eriksson & Mats Eriksson, n. 890110-3a (UPS holotypus; HAJB, IMI, UME 29246, isotypi).

Type locality: Cuba, Pinar del Río Province, Viñales, south part of Valle de San Vicente, west of the ridge with Cueva de San Miguel, on the stem of a tree, altitude unkown, 10 January 1989, O. D. Eriksson & M. Eriksson 890110-3a (UPS - holotype; HAJB, IMI, UME 29246 - isotypes).

Type locality coordinates: 22°40'13"N, 83°42'21"W.

Molecular barcode: Muggia,L., Gueidan,C., Perlmutter,G.B., Eriksson,O.E. and Grube,M., 2009: Molecular data confirm the position of Flakea papillata in the Verrucariaceae. - Bryologist 112 (3): 538-543.

Thallus: foliose, small, prothalloid, lobes very thin, 20-30 µm thick, at first greenish, later on greyish blue-green and when old brownish, strongly flattened, not or only little incised, narrower towards the base and often with some very small lobes, often imbriacte; mycobiont a cortical, non-continuous layer of hyaline cells with usually 4-8, ca. 2-3 µm high papillae, in SEM the cell surfaces are covered with loose fibres, resembling old, dusty spide-web, and the rather acute papillae with an amorphous substance; with tufts of ca. 5-10, up to at least 500 µm long and ca. 4-5 µm wide, brown, septate, cells ca. 17-25 µm long; no pore seen in septa, rhizoids, which often have a few anastomoses, and are provided with some papillae at the bases; Ascomata unknown (Eriksson 1992: 14).

Photobiont: Chlorococcoid green alga, in a non-continuous layer between the cortical layers, very firmly embedded in the fungal tissue, cells rounded, ca. 6 µm wide, often in groups of 2 or 4, bright green, rather thick-walled, with pyrenoid.

Chemistry: No lichen substances (Eriksson 1992: 14).

Ecology: Corticolous or saxicolous on silicious rocks (Eriksson 1992: 14). On calcareous rock (Feuerer currently without number in HBG).

Distribution type: Widely distributed in the tropics, subtropics, in North America from Florida to Ohio (Hansen 2003: 73, Perlmutter 2006: 293, Perlmutter 2006a: 567, Andreas et al. 2007: 61). Probably to be found in Europe (Eriksson 2018).

Taxonomy: Data lacking.

Note: Few years after the description of Flakea papillata in 1992, the species was included in the genus Agonimia by Aptroot et al. (1997), but molecular data by Muggia et al. (2010) show, that the taxon should be kept in a separate genus.

Distribution Database: Distributions

Distribution Database: Discover Life

Picture Database: Tropical Lichens

Molecular Database: Genbank

Synonym Database: Index Fungorum

Synonym Database: Mycobank