''Imshaugia placorodia'', the American starburst lichen, 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),

foliose lichen A foliose lichen is a lichen with flat, leaf-like , which are generally not firmly bonded to the substrate on which it grows. It is one of the three most common growth forms of lichens. It typically has distinct upper and lower surfaces, each o ...

in the family

Parmeliaceae The Parmeliaceae is a large and diverse family of Lecanoromycetes. With over 2700 species in 71 genera, it is the largest family of lichen-forming fungi. The most speciose genera in the family are the well-known groups: '' Xanthoparmelia'' ( 82 ...

Taxonomy

The species was first

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 ...

in 1814 by the Swedish lichenologist

Erik Acharius Erik Acharius (10 October 1757 – 14 August 1819) was a Swedish botanist who pioneered the Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy of lichens and is known as the "father of lichenology". Acharius was famously the last pupil of Carl Linnaeus. Life Ac ...

, who classified it in the genus '' Parmelia'', when that genus was much more broadly interpreted than it is now. He wrote the following about the species: "''Parmelia placorodia'' has a circular, smooth thallus that is pale bluish-grey and smooth but wrinkled, with a milky appearance and dark greyish-black fissures. The are folded, compact, scattered, and elevated, with a light brown color, and their margins are turned inward, wrinkled, and somewhat (scalloped) and nearly closed. This lichen is found in North America on dead wood. It is distinguished by its distinct appearance, closely resembling ''Parmelia physodes'' var. ''platyphylla'', and should not be confused with ''Parmelia conspersa''".

William Nylander William Andrew Michael Junior Nylander Altelius (born 1 May 1996) is a Swedish professional ice hockey Forward (ice hockey), forward for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL). Nylander was selected by the Maple Leafs in t ...

transferred the

taxon In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

to the genus '' Parmeliopsis'' in 1869. In 1985, Susan Meyer transferred it to the newly

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 ...

genus ''

Imshaugia ''Imshaugia'' is a genus of seven species of foliose lichens in the family Parmeliaceae. They are commonly known as starburst lichens. Taxonomy The genus was circumscribed by Susan Meyer in 1985 as a segregate of '' Parmeliopsis''. In a previo ...

'', a segregate of genus ''Parmeliopsis'' distinguished by both microscopic and chemical characteristics. She designated as

lectotype In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally associated. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes ...

one of the specimens originally collected by

Gotthilf Henry Ernest Muhlenberg Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg (17 November 1753 – 23 May 1815) was an American clergyman and botanist. Biography The son of Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg, he was born in Trappe, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Franckesche Stiftungen in ...

, and kept at the Acharius Herbarium (H-ACH), at the Botanical Museum of the

Finnish Museum of Natural History The Finnish Museum of Natural History (, ), established in 1988, is a research institution under the University of Helsinki in Finland, based in Helsinki, Finland. It is a natural history museum responsible for the national botanical, zoological, ...

Description

''Imshaugia placorodia'' has a pale gray

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 ...

comprising narrow lobes measuring 0.5–1.5 mm wide. Its

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 ...

(fruiting bodies) are 2–7 mm wide.

Habitat and distribution

The North American distribution of ''Imshaugia placorodia'' includes eastern Canada and the northeastern United States, and areas of the central United States. In Mexico, it is found in the Northwest part of the country to its Central Volcanic Belt. It grows on the bark of various species of

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

trees.

References

{{Taxonbar , from1=Q21170037 , from2=Q59491393 , from3=Q108133914 Parmeliaceae Lichen species Lichens described in 1814 Lichens of Eastern Canada Lichens of the United States Lichens of Mexico Taxa named by Erik Acharius