''Leptogium kalbii'' is a species of lichen in the family

Collemataceae The Collemataceae are a lichenized family of fungi in the order Peltigerales. The family contains ten genera and about 325 species. The family has a widespread distribution. Taxonomy The family was circumscribed by Jonathan Carl Zenker in 1827 ...

. It is found in Brazil, both in

São Paulo State SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U. ...

and in some

Islands of Brazil The following is a list of the islands of Brazil. Atlantic Ocean islands * Arquipelago de Fernando de Noronha *Arquipélago de São Pedro e São Paulo (Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago) *Atol das Rocas (Rocas Atoll) * Alcatrazes Archipelago ...

Taxonomy

''Leptogium kalbii'' was formally described as a new species in 2007 by Brazilian lichenologists Marcelo Marcelli and Iane P.R. Cunha. The

type specimen 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 attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes the ...

was collected on a tree trunk in a shady

restinga Restingas () are a distinct type of coastal tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forest in eastern Brazil. They form on sandy, acidic, and nutrient-poor soils, and are characterized by medium-sized trees and shrubs adapted to the drier and nut ...

forest beside the

Guaraú River The Guaraú River ( pt, Rio Guaraú) is a river in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Course The basin of the Guaraú River is in the Juréia-Itatins Ecological Station. The river flows eastward along the foot of the Serra dos Itatins and enters t ...

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...

. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

honours German lichenologist

Klaus Kalb Klaus Kalb (born 1942) is a German lichenologist and an authority on tropical lichens. Biography Klaus Kalb was born in Nuremberg in 1942 and grew up in southern Bavaria. From 1960 to 1965 he studied biology, chemistry, and geography at ...

, who, according to the authors, "has worked on Brazilian lichens for over 30 years, producing important contributions in tropical lichenology, and who sowed the seeds of modern lichenology in São Paulo State".

Description

The lichen has a wrinkled

thallus Thallus (plural: 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. Many of these organisms ...

, greenish to brownish gray in colour, measuring wide, comprising flat, overlapping lobes that are 2–5.5 mm wide. It has roughly spherical laminal structures the authors call "granules" that measure 0.1–0.25 mm in diameter, and originate from the edges of the wrinkles. These granules, which are the same colour as the thallus, may be absent in some thalli, or densely crowded in others.

Apothecia An ascocarp, or ascoma (), 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. Ascocarps are mo ...

are mostly located on the margins on the thallus; they are up to 1.2 mm in diameter. The

ascospore An ascus (; ) is the sexual spore-bearing cell produced in ascomycete fungi. Each ascus usually contains eight ascospores (or octad), produced by meiosis followed, in most species, by a mitotic cell division. However, asci in some genera o ...

s are

ellipsoid An ellipsoid is a surface that may be obtained from a sphere by deforming it by means of directional scalings, or more generally, of an affine transformation. An ellipsoid is a quadric surface; that is, a surface that may be defined as the ...

with sharp tips, measuring 26.5–32.5

μm The micrometre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: μm) or micrometer (American spelling), also commonly known as a micron, is a unit of length in the International System of Uni ...

; they have 3 to 5 transverse

septa The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is a regional public transportation authority that operates transit bus, bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly 4 million people ...

and 1 or 2 longitudinal septa. The cyanobacterial partner of ''Leptogium kalbii'' is ''

Nostoc ''Nostoc'', also known as star jelly, troll’s butter, spit of moon, fallen star, witch's butter (not to be confused with the fungi commonly known as witches' butter), and witch’s jelly, is the most common genus of cyanobacteria found in vari ...

''; their cells measure 5.0–6.5 by 5.0–6.5 μm.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q10558544 kalbii Lichen species Lichens described in 2007 Lichens of Brazil