A new species of Porpidia (Lecideales, Ascomycota) from Pakistan

One new species and three new records in the genus Porpidia from China

“…The cosmopolitan crustose genus Porpidia Körb. (Lecideaceae) is estimated to comprise c. 50 saxicolous species (Ruprecht et al 2016(Ruprecht et al , 2020Zhao et al 2016;Elix & McCarthy 2018;Kondratyuk et al 2019;Spribille et al 2020;Fayyaz et al 2022). It is characterized by crustose, thick to inconspicuous, grey, white or occasionally orange thalli, dark brown to black lecideine apothecia, thick hymenia, darkly pigmented hypothecia, a usually moderately to heavily pigmented exciple, Porpidia-type, 8-spored asci, and simple, colourless, ellipsoid, halonate ascospores (Rambold 1989;Fryday 2005).…”

“…Although the genus is one of the most studied of the segregates of Lecidea, species delimitation in Porpidia has proved to be very difficult because of the problems in recognizing species-level characteristics (Hertel 1975;Hertel & Knoph 1984;Schwab 1986;Gowan 1989a, b;Gowan & Ahti 1993;Buschbom & Mueller 2004Fryday 2005;Coppins & Fryday 2006;Jabłońska 2009;Osyczka & Olech 2011;Wang et al 2012;Li et al 2013;Fryday & Hertel 2014;Hu et al 2014;Lendemer & Harris 2014;Orange 2014;Zhang et al 2015;Ruprecht et al 2016;Zhao et al 2016;Elix & McCarthy 2018;Kondratyuk et al 2019;Spribille et al 2020;Fayyaz et al 2022). In recent years, molecular studies of the genus have greatly enhanced our understanding of the infrageneric relationships, but there are also many unidentified collections that probably represent undescribed taxa.…”

“…2020; Fayyaz et al . 2022). It is characterized by crustose, thick to inconspicuous, grey, white or occasionally orange thalli, dark brown to black lecideine apothecia, thick hymenia, darkly pigmented hypothecia, a usually moderately to heavily pigmented exciple, Porpidia -type, 8-spored asci, and simple, colourless, ellipsoid, halonate ascospores (Rambold 1989; Fryday 2005).…”

“…2020; Fayyaz et al . 2022). In recent years, molecular studies of the genus have greatly enhanced our understanding of the infrageneric relationships, but there are also many unidentified collections that probably represent undescribed taxa.…”

Some new lichen records from Pakistan

“…So far, up to 400 lichens have been reported from Pakistan (e.g. Aptroot & Iqbal, 2012;Fatima et al, 2021;Habib et al, 2021;Kousar et al, 2021;Fayyaz et al, 2022;Nadeem et al, 2022).…”