Ramalina dendriscoides Nyl.

Flora 59: 412 (1876)

 

Description: Lichen. Thallus fruticose, shrubby, to 5 cm high, densely and intricately branched. Branches pale stramineous or pale green grey, solid, brittle, mainly terete but sometimes slightly flattened in basal parts, 0.2 - 0.5 mm wide. Cortex glossy. Soralia punctiform, efflorescent, lateral on main branches and apical on short lateral branchlets. Apothecia not known (Swinscow & Krog 1988: 280).

Chemistry: Cortex with usnic acid. Medulla with salazinic acid (K + red, PD + orange) (Swinscow & Krog 1988: 280).

Ecology: Corticolous on dry shrub vegetation, 900 to 1000 m altitude, uncommon in East Africa.

Note: "Ramalina tenella, a coastal species, resembles R. dendriscoides in its apical, subcapitate soralia and in the production of salazinic acid, but it has a shorter, less delicate thallus to 2 cm high, with distinctly flattened main branches 0.6 - 0.8 mm wide, and regular, mainly dichotomous branching. Ramalina peruviana superficially resembles Ramalina dendriscoides in its subterete branches and mode of branching, but differs in having lateral rather than mainly apical soralia, and in producing substances in the sekikaic acid agg. instead of salazinic acid" (Swinscow & Krog 1988: 280).