Waynea Adscendens

''Waynea'' is a genus of lichen-forming fungi in the family Ramalinaceae. The genus was established in 1990 by the Swedish lichenologist Roland Moberg and named after the Wayne family who helped organize his collecting trip to California, where he collected the type species. The tiny lichens in ''Waynea'' form patches made up of scale-like lobes less than half a millimetre across, with powdery cushions that help them spread without sexual reproduction. The genus contains six species found in Europe and North America, growing on tree bark in small patches that can coalesce into mats just a few millimetres wide.

Taxonomy

Waynea was circumscribed in 1990 by the Swedish lichenologist Roland Moberg, who erected the genus to accommodate the new Californian species '' Waynea californica''. Moberg placed his squamulose, sorediate lichen in the then-recognised family Bacidiaceae on account of its ''Bacidia''-type asci, three-septate ascospores and , stalked apothecia (fruiting bodies), but he noted that it differed sharply from related genera in lacking secondary metabolites and a prothallus. He named the genus in honour of the Wayne family who had helped organise his collecting trip to Big Sur.

Subsequent morphological and molecular work showed that Bacidiaceae is not distinct from Ramalinaceae; current syntheses therefore place ''Waynea'' within that family. The genus remains recognised by its minute, often ascending squamules, stalked soralia or apothecia, and ''Bacidia''-type asci with colourless, up-to-five-septate spores.

Description

''Waynea'' forms diminutive, olive- to brown-green patches made up of tiny, scale-like lobes called . Each squamule is convex, often lifts slightly from the bark, and measures less than 0.5 mm across, but neighbouring thalli can coalesce into mats only a few millimetres wide. Pale swellings appear on the upper surface; these burst open to create short-stalked, cup-shaped soralia—powdery cushions that release soredia, the microscopic packets of algal and fungal cells used for vegetative spread. Occasional short-stemmed, bluish-grey apothecia (sexual fruit bodies) are also produced; their rim is pale and unpigmented, making them easy to overlook against the soralia—especially because both structures are barely half a millimetre across.

In section, the upper is 20–30 μm thick and built of rounded, tightly packed cells, while the lower surface lacks any protective layer. A loose white medulla envelops ''Myrmecia''-type green algal cells (spherical, 5–10 μm in diameter). The apothecial tissue contains slender, unbranched paraphyses with slightly swollen tips and cylindrical–clavate asci that each bear eight colourless, three-septate ascospores measuring 13–19 × 3–4 μm; the ascus apex stains blue in iodine, an amyloid reaction. No secondary lichen substances were detected in thin-layer chromatography of the type species, and the genus is further distinguished by the absence of a outlining the thallus margin.

Species

, Species Fungorum (in the Catalogue of Life) accept six species of ''Waynea'':
*''Waynea adscendens'' – Spain
*''Waynea algarvensis'' – Portugal
*'' Waynea californica'' – United States
*'' Waynea cretica'' – Greece
*'' Waynea giraltiae'' – Europe
*'' Waynea hirsuta'' – Siberia

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q10719430

Ramalinaceae
Lichen genera
Lecanorales genera
Taxa described in 1990
Taxa named by Roland Moberg