The Tephromelataceae are a

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

of lichenized fungi in the order

Lecanorales The Lecanorales are an order of mostly lichen-forming fungi belonging to the class Lecanoromycetes in the division Ascomycota. The order contains 26 families, 269 genera, and 5695 species. Families * Aphanopsidaceae * Biatorellaceae * Briga ...

. The family was

circumscribed In geometry, the circumscribed circle or circumcircle of a polygon is a circle that passes through all the vertices of the polygon. The center of this circle is called the circumcenter and its radius is called the circumradius. Not every po ...

by Austrian lichenologist

Josef Hafellner Josef Hafellner (1951– ) is an Austrian mycologist and lichenologist. He was awarded the Acharius Medal in 2016 for his lifetime contributions to lichenology. Before his retirement, he was a professor at the Karl-Franzens-Universität in Gra ...

in 1984. Tephromelataceae comprises the genera '' Tephromela'', '' Calvitimela'', '' Mycoblastus'' and '' Violella'', which together constitute a well-supported

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic ...

group. The family Mycoblastaceae, proposed by Hafellner to contain the genus ''Mycoblastus'', was also published in the same 1984 publication; it was later placed into

synonymy A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

with Tephromelataceae. The latter name takes precedence because of its first adopted use.

Genera

Tephromelataceae contains 4 genera and about 53 species. This is a list of the genera contained within the Tephromelataceae; following the genus name is the

taxonomic authority In biology, taxonomy () is the scientific study of naming, defining ( circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa (singular: taxon) and these groups are given ...

, year of publication, and the number of species: *'' Calvitimela'' – 11 spp. *'' Mycoblastus'' – 10 spp. *'' Tephromela'' – ca. 30 spp. *'' Violella'' – 2 spp.

References

Lecanoromycetes families Lecanorales Lichen families Taxa named by Josef Hafellner Taxa described in 1984 {{Lecanorales-stub