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Felipes leucopellaeus (Ach.) Frisch & G.Thor

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Kattefotlav.
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Felipes leucopellaeus collected from Picea abies at Kalvedalen in Våler (O-L-106108).

Felipes leucopellaeus is widespread in humid natural forests in southern and central Norway. It is characterized by an extensive felty to granular thallus with trentepohlioid photobiont. The brownish black apothecia are often lobed or elongated, and have a thin white pruina. The spores are 3–4(–5)-transversely septate, and brown and warted when old. The apical cell is not enlarged.

Description

Thallus

The extensive thallus is off-white to pale fawn and has a rough, minutely felty, minutely granular or powdery surface. It is up to 100 µm thick and developed mainly on the surface of the bark. The margin is not determinate or delimited by a thin brown line. The photobiont is a species of the family Trentepohliaceae.

Fruitbodies

The apothecia are maculate and attached to the thallus. They are dark brown to black in color and are usually covered in a thin white pruina. Characteristic for the apothecia is a thin layer of cobweb-like hyphae along the margins that partly connect the apothecia to the adjacent thallus. These hyphae are absent in some specimens. The shape of the apothecia is irregularly rounded, clearly lobed or elongate, often with a characteristically depressed center. They are 0.3–1.5(–2.0) mm in size and 70–100 μm tall.

The epithecium is dark reddish brown, 10–15 μm tall, and formed of the densely intertwined tips of the paraphysoidal hyphae that extend horizontally above the asci.

The hymenium is colorless or pale brown, and it is 35–50 μm tall.

The hypothecium is dark reddish brown and 30–45 μm tall.

The paraphysoids are ca 1 μm wide and enlarged to 2.5 μm in the epithecium.

The asci are clavate, without stipe, 28–42 × 12–15 μm in size, and 8-spored.

The spores are unpigmented, narrowly obovoid, (10.0–)12.0–17.0 × 3.5–5.0 μm in size, and divided by 3–4(–5) transverse septa. Old spores are pale brown and warted.

Anamorph

Pycnidia have not been found in F. leucopellaeus.

Chemistry

The thallus of most specimens does not react with C, K, KC, Pd or UV (C–, K–, KC–, Pd–, UV–). Two compounds named the Felipes unknowns have been identified by TLC. Few specimens show a weak K+ yellow and Pd+ orange reaction which is caused by occasional thamnolic acid and fumarprotocetraric acid in low amounts. It is unclear whether these additional compounds are produced by F. leucopellaeus or by another lichen overgrown by it.  

The brown pigment in the epithecium changes to pale green in K solution.

Kattefotlav.
Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike | Andreas Frisch

Felipes leucopellaeus collected from Picea abies at Ørken in Rakkestad (O-L-19520).

Ecology

Felipes leucopellaeus is a species of humid natural forests that prefers old trees with a neutral to acidic bark chemistry. It typically grows on downy birch (Betula pubescens), Norway spruce (Picea abies), rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). Alder (Alnus spp.) and oak (Quercus spp.) are less commonly colonized. Felipes leucopellaeus grows most often in spruce or birch dominated boreal forests, wooded mires, and costal pine forests.  

Distribution in Norway and the Nordic countries

Felipes leucopellaeus is widely distributed in southern and central Norway up to Brønnøysund, but it is rare or completely absent in mountain areas. In the Nordic countries, it is further known from Denmark, Finland, and Sweden.

Global distribution

Felipes leucopellaeus is widespread from the mountains of central and western Europe to the Nordic countries. It has also been found in eastern and western North America.

Kattefotlav.
Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike | Andreas Frisch

Felipes leucopellaeus collected from Store Hiesten in Rakkestad (O-L-19415).

Similar species

Due to its characteristic apothecia and thallus, Felipes leucopellaeus cannot be confused with any other species in Norway. Small individuals may lack the characteristic cobweb-like margin of the apothecia, and in some individuals, the thallus can be completely immersed in the bark substrate. Such specimens are easily identified by the matt, brownish black apothecia with a thin white pruina, dark reddish brown epithecium and hypothecium, and the narrow obovoid spores with 3 to 4 septa and equal cells.

Small sterile thalli in the boreo-nemoral rainforests of western Norway can be confused with Schizotrema quercicola (Graphidaceae). This species is most easily separated by the PD+ red thallus (protocetraric acid).

Literature

Cannon P, Ertz D, Frisch A, Aptroot A, Chambers S, Coppins BJ, Sanderson N, Simkin J and Wolseley P (2020). Arthoniales: Arthoniaceae. Revisions of British and Irish Lichens 1: 1–48.

Frisch A, Thor G, Ertz D and Grube M (2014). The Arthonialean challenge: restructuring Arthoniaceae. Taxon 63: 727–744.