Lecanora pallidochlorina T. H. Nash, B. D. Ryan & Lumbsch
in Lumbsch, Messuti & Nash, Bryologist 106, 4: 556 (2003).
Description: Lichen. Thallus crustose, pale yellowish green to glaucous green, initially of small corticate, occasionally subcoralloid areoles typically 0.2-0.3 mm broad, these becoming granulose-sorediate and the entire thallus typically becoming a continuous crust of coarse granulose soredia; older portions of thallus becoming thickened and rimose, often densely beset with zeorin crystals; prothallus occasionally present, localized, white, poorly differentiated and somewhat fibrous, or rarely narrow and black. Apothecia lecanorine, occasionally and scattered, sessile, +/- plane, to ca. 1(1.8) mm broad, disks pale tan, in age becoming locally to wholly purplish brown, usually with a thin white pruina; margin to 0.3 mm thick, granulose-sorediate, lacking an obvious cortex, typically with coarse irregular crenations, raised above the disk and when well developed, sometimes appearing obscurely radially ridged or striate; epihymenium brown, granulose, ca. 10 µm thick, KOH-, granules dissolving in KOH; amphithecium ca. 150-190 µm thick, with abundant algae throughout, with frequent large irregular crystals to ca. 20 µm on their longest axis, these persistent in KOH; paraphyses distinct, frequently branched in distal portions, not notably expanded at apices, which are typically to 3 µm broad; subhymenium pale yellowish in KOH; ascospores 8, simple, hyaline, broadly elliptical, (7.5) 8.6-10.2-11.8 (13.4) x (4.6) 4.9-5.7-6.5 (7.6) µm [n=48] (Ladd & Morse 2012: 60).
Photobiont: Data lacking.
Chemistry: Thallus KOH+ yellow, KC-, C-, UV-; all Great Plains material contains usnic acid and zeorin, but no atranorin was detected by TLC. Both specimens from Ellsworth Co., Kansas contain a fatty acid with Rf values just above zeorin in solvent systems A, B', and C of Orange (2001) (Ladd & Morse 2012: 62).
Ecology: On exposed siliceous rocks in Mexican thorn forests at altitudes below 1000 meters and in dry, lightly shaded expanses of massive sandstone and granite under overhangs of outcrops, bluffs, and large boulders, growing in sheltered areas protected from direct wetting, but with moderately high light intensity (Ladd & Morse 2012: 60).
Molecular data: Genbank
Distribution: Database
Note: