''Carassea'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

ized

fungi A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...

in the family

Cladoniaceae The Cladoniaceae are a family of lichen-forming fungi in the order Lecanorales, comprising about 560 species distributed amongst 18 genera. This family is one of the largest among lichen-forming fungi and is globally distributed, from Arctic t ...

. The genus was

circumscribed In geometry, a circumscribed circle for a set of points is a circle passing through each of them. Such a circle is said to ''circumscribe'' the points or a polygon formed from them; such a polygon is said to be ''inscribed'' in the circle. * Circum ...

in 2002 by Finnish lichenologist Soili Stenroos. A

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

genus, ''Carassea'' contains the single species ''Carassea connexa''. This species, originally named ''Cladonia connexa'', was first documented by Edvard August Wainio, who collected specimens from

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil, being the fourth largest state by area and the second largest in number of inhabitants with a population of 20,539,989 according to the 2022 Brazilian census, 2022 census. Located in ...

, Brazil, in 1885, and published a

description Description is any type of communication that aims to make vivid a place, object, person, group, or other physical entity. It is one of four rhetorical modes (also known as ''modes of discourse''), along with exposition, argumentation, and narr ...

of the species in the first of his three-volume ''Monographia Cladoniarum universalis''. The Cladoniaceae genera most closely related to ''Carassea'' include ''

Pycnothelia ''Pycnothelia'' is a genus of lichen-forming fungi in the family Cladoniaceae. ''Pycnothelia'' was promoted to generic status by French naturalist Léon Jean Marie Dufour in 1821; it was originally circumscription (taxonomy), circumscribed by Eri ...

'' and '' Metus''.

References

Cladoniaceae Lichen genera Monotypic Lecanorales genera Taxa described in 2002 Taxa named by Soili Stenroos {{Lecanorales-stub