Malmidea eeuuae
| Malmidea eeuuae | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification 
| |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Ascomycota |
| Class: | Lecanoromycetes |
| Order: | Lecanorales |
| Family: | Malmideaceae |
| Genus: | Malmidea |
| Species: | M. eeuuae
|
| Binomial name | |
| Malmidea eeuuae Kalb (2011)
| |
| |
| Holotype: Khao Yai National Park, Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand | |
Malmidea eeuuae is a corticolous (bark-dwelling), crustose lichen in the family Malmideaceae.[1] It was described in 2011 from Khao Yai National Park in north-eastern Thailand. The species has a finely warted thallus and non-septate, halonate ascospores, and it differs from M. coralliformis by its larger spores.
Taxonomy
[edit]The species was introduced as Malmidea eeuuae by Klaus Kalb in 2011 within a study on Malmidea and the family Malmideaceae. The holotype was collected in a very disturbed tropical rainforest near the students' lodges (Ban Krong Kaew) in Khao Yai National Park, Nakhon Ratchasima province, at about 760 m elevation. The specific name honours Jutarat Sutjaritturakan ("Eeuu"), a Thai lichenologist.[2]
Description
[edit]The thallus is thin, crust-like and continuous (about 150–200 μm thick) on bark, densely warted (verrucose) with warts 0.1–0.15 mm high and 0.1–0.25 mm wide; soredia and isidia are absent. The medulla is cream-coloured and reacts potassium hydroxide (KOH)-positive (dark orange to orange-red). The photobiont is chlorococcoid (cells 5–8 μm in diameter). Apothecia are sessile, rounded to slightly flexuose, 0.2–0.5 mm across and 0.1–0.2 mm high; the disc is plane to slightly convex and light leather-brown to tawny, with a thin biatorine margin of the granifera type that starts entire and prominent but becomes slightly recurved and warty; the margin is 80–130 μm thick and whitish to cream. The proper exciple is hyaline at the periphery and internally shows a medullary layer of loosely arranged, periclinal hyphae with constricted septa, 30–50 μm wide, bearing yellowish to ochraceous-yellow hydrophobic granules that partly dissolve in KOH with a yellowish to greenish-yellow reaction. The subhymenium is about 50 μm high and chocolate- to olive-brown; the hypothecium is 50–75 μm high, brown and K–; the hymenium is 100–120 μm high and hyaline. Asci measure 55–70 × 16–20 μm. Ascospores number 4–6 (more rarely up to 8) per ascus, are colourless, ellipsoid, non-septate and halonate, typically 16–20 × 8–11 μm with a 1–1.5 μm halo. Reported chemistry includes xantholepinone G (major), contortin (submajor), concontortin (minor) and three unknown xantholepinones (minor). [2]
Habitat and distribution
[edit]Known from Khao Yai National Park, Malmidea eeuuae grows on tree bark in very disturbed tropical rainforest around 760 m elevation, near the students' lodges at Ban Krong Kaew.[2]
References
[edit]- ^ "Malmidea eeuuae Kalb". Catalogue of Life. Species 2000: Leiden, the Netherlands. Retrieved 2 October 2025.
- ^ a b c Kalb, Klaus; Rivas Plata, Eimy; Lücking, Robert; Lumbsch, H. Thorsten (2011). "The phylogenetic position of Malmidea, a new genus for the Lecidea piperis- and Lecanora granifera-groups (Lecanorales, Malmideaceae), inferred from nuclear and mitochondrial ribosomal DNA sequences, with special reference to Thai species". In Bates, Scott T.; Bungartz, Frank; Lücking, Robert; Herrera-Campos, Maria A.; Zambrano, Angel (eds.). A Lichenological Legacy – Festschrift Thomas H. Nash III. Bibliotheca Lichenologica. Vol. 106. Stuttgart: J. Cramer in der Gebråder Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung. pp. 143–168. ISBN 978-3-443-58085-8.