Galapagos Species Database

Thallus shrubby, greenish grey to pale grey, decaying parts sometimes becoming red, up to 5 cm diam. but usually much smaller (1–3 cm), relatively densely branched, without a distinct holdfast; branches initially upright, hanging down when older, in section irregularly angular, typically not flattened, sometimes markedly curved in the longitudinal direction and frequently with curved lobe tips (‘‘shepherds’ crooks’’), relatively slender (up to 2 mm wide), often with rounded, irregular, laminal warts that typically abrade into parallel, linear pseudocyphellae, rarely also with few punctiform tuberculate pseudocyphellae, or with pycnidial or apothecial warts; soredia absent. Apothecia common, c. 1–4 mm in diam., cupular, laminal, disc yellowish grey, branches often strongly bent at the apothecia (geniculate, apothecia thus appearing ‘‘two stalked’’); ascospores narrowly oblong, usually ±curved, 16–20 x 3–4 µm. Pycnidia mostly marginal, hemispherical, 0.1–0.2 mm diam., ostiole pale ochre; conidia rod-shaped, 4–5 x 0.5–0.7 µm. Chemistry: Medulla K+ orange-yellow, soon red, rarely K-, UV+ white or UV- (divaricatic or salazinic and/or sekikaic acid); cortex with usnic acid, often also with atranorin.

This species is mostly corticolous, rarely also saxicolous and grows throughout the coastal and arid zone, where it is often abundant