Placidium lachneum (Ach.) Breuss

Sokoloff, Paul C., Freebury, Colin E., Hamilton, Paul B. & Saarela, Jeffery M., 2016, The " Martian " flora: new collections of vascular plants, lichens, fungi, algae, and cyanobacteria from the Mars Desert Research Station, Utah, Biodiversity Data Journal 4, pp. 8176-8176 : 8176

Placidium lachneum (Ach.) Breuss

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordNumber: 305c; recordedBy: Sokoloff, Paul C.; Taxon: scientificName: Placidiumlachneum (Ach.) Breuss; kingdom: Fungi; phylum: Ascomycota; class: Eurotiomycetes; order: Verrucariales; family: Verrucariaceae; genus: Placidium; specificEpithet: lachneum; taxonRank: Species; scientificNameAuthorship: (Ach.) Breuss; Location: continent: North America; country: United States of America; countryCode: USA; stateProvince: Utah; county: Wayne County; municipality: Hanksville; locality: Mars Desert Research Station ; verbatimLocality: Alluvial plain and dry creekbed directly opposite turnoff to Mars Desert Research Station on Cow Dung Road; verbatimElevation: 1357 m; verbatimLatitude: 38°24'19.2"N; verbatimLongitude: 110°47'20"W; geodeticDatum: WGS84; coordinateUncertaintyInMeters: 50; Identification: identifiedBy: Freebury, Colin E.; dateIdentified: 2015; Event: verbatimEventDate: November 24, 2014; habitat: Sandstone rubble on sandy plain; Record Level: institutionID: CMN; collectionID: CANL 127972; collectionCode: CANL; basisOfRecord: Preserved Specimen

Notes

This soil crust lichen is common in the Great Basin desert shrub lands and on the Colorado Plateau ( St. Clair et al. 1991). The lower cortex is comprised of a distinct layer of globular cells, 20-70 μm high, with the lowermost cells brown to black. Breuss (2002) describes the lower cortex with angular cells in distinct vertical columns. McCune and Rosentreter (2007) provide a photo that shows +/- globular cells in a non-aligned pattern. Brodo et al. (2016) describe the cells of the lower cortex as spherical and sometimes in vertical columns, which corresponds well with our specimen (Fig. 20b). Other key characteristics of Placidium lachneum include the presence of marginal pycnidia and hyphal wefts that help to attach the lichen to the soil, as shown in Fig. 22c.

Supplemental File: CANL 127972 (Suppl. material 21).