''Chaenothecopsis jordaniana'' is a species of

corticolous This glossary of mycology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to mycology, the study of fungi. Terms in common with other fields, if repeated here, generally focus on their mycology-specific meaning. Related terms can be found ...

(bark-dwelling)

pin lichen Lichens are symbiotic organisms made up of multiple species: a fungus, one or more photobionts (an alga and/or a cyanobacteria) and sometimes a yeast. They are regularly grouped by their external appearance – a characteristic known as their gro ...

Formally described A species description is a formal scientific description of a newly encountered species, typically articulated through a scientific publication. Its purpose is to provide a clear description of a new species of organism and explain how it differ ...

as a new species in 2020 by Otto Gockman and Steven Selva, it is classified in the family

Mycocaliciaceae The Mycocaliciaceae are a family (biology), family of fungi in the order Mycocaliciales, comprising seven genera and approximately 90 species. Originally proposed in 1970 by Alexander Schmidt, the family is characterised by immersed thallus, thal ...

Description

The lichen lacks a

thallus Thallus (: thalli), from Latinized Greek (), meaning "a green shoot" or "twig", is the vegetative tissue of some organisms in diverse groups such as algae, fungi, some liverworts, lichens, and the Myxogastria. A thallus usually names the entir ...

and can be found on the bark of

Eastern White Cedar ''Thuja occidentalis'', also known as northern white-cedar, eastern white-cedar, or arborvitae, is an evergreen coniferous tree, in the cypress family Cupressaceae, which is native to eastern Canada and much of the north-central and northeastern ...

Apothecia An ascocarp, or ascoma (: ascomata), is the fruiting body ( sporocarp) of an ascomycete phylum fungus. It consists of very tightly interwoven hyphae and millions of embedded asci, each of which typically contains four to eight ascospores. As ...

are singular or in groups of 2–7, black or greenish, and .

range from 0.14–0.28 mm tall, and 0.11–0.30 mm across, and have an absent or extremely short stock, 0.02–0.08 mm in diameter; they are visible with a 20X hand lens. Asci are cylindrical, 34–50 μm long and 2.5–4.5 μm wide.

Ascospores In fungi, an ascospore is the sexual spore formed inside an ascus—the sac-like cell that defines the division Ascomycota, the largest and most diverse division of fungi. After two parental nuclei fuse, the ascus undergoes meiosis (halving of ...

are

septate In biology, a septum (Latin for ''something that encloses''; septa) is a wall, dividing a cavity or structure into smaller ones. A cavity or structure divided in this way may be referred to as septate. Examples Human anatomy * Interatrial se ...

, pale brown,

ellipsoid An ellipsoid is a surface that can be obtained from a sphere by deforming it by means of directional Scaling (geometry), scalings, or more generally, of an affine transformation. An ellipsoid is a quadric surface; that is, a Surface (mathemat ...

al, 6.0–10.5 μm long and 2.0–3.0 μm wide.

Habitat

''Chaenothecopsis jordaniana'' is found only in

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

. Most commonly located on the bark of the

in narrow ridges. The majority of trees it is found on have weathered white and grayish bark. Apothecia are found where grayish bark transitions to a brown hue, similar to younger tree bark.

Etymology

''Chaenothecopsis jordaniana'' is named after Dr. Peter Albion Jordan (1930–2017).

References

{{taxonbar, from=Q107561730 Eurotiomycetes Lichen species Lichens described in 2020 Lichens of the North-Central United States