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Acarospora

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Species in Acarospora may be shiny as if covered with a glossy varnish, or dull and powdery looking. They have a diverse range of colors, from the brilliant yellow bright cobblestone lichen, to the dark reddish-brown mountain cobblestone lichen, or they can appear tan, gray, or white, from a dusty-looking coating (pruina). They may grow in crustose forms like a warty surface (verrucose), like cracking-up old crust of paint (rimose), like a bunch of "islands" in a dry lake bed (areolate), like the flakes of cracking up paint are peeling up at the edges (sub-squamulous), or like the flakes are growing over others like scales (squamulous).

Description

They may grow as a warty crust (verrucose, a cracked crust rimose, or with the cracks separating island-like sections like in a dried lake (areolate – with the "islands" being called areoles). The areolas may lift up at the edges (sub-squamulose), and these edges may overlap other areolas like scales (squamulose, with the areoles being called squamules). The areoles may grow in lobes radiating from a center (placodioid. They may grow in irregular or indeterminate forms, sometimes with the areoles disconnected from each other and dispersed among other lichens. Sometimes the squamules may be elevated with expansion of the mycelial base above the substrate ("gomphate"), or aside on "stems" called stipes, which are usually about usually half the diameter of areole. The outer rim of the areola is usually down-turned.

They may be shiny or dull, and in many shades from pale to blackish brown. They may be smooth or rough (rugulose). They may be different colors from brilliant yellow (from rhizocarpic acid) to brown to white. They may or may not be covered with a powdery-looking surface (pruinose), which when present, may make them appear lighter in color, to almost white.

Internal structure

Like other crustose lichens, their cross-section is generally divided into three layers, the cortex, photobiont layer, and medulla, and generally without a lower cortex as in foliose lichens. The cortex itself is usually differentiated, with three layers including a syncortex, epinecral layer, and eucortex, which is where the pigment is located in the upper parts. Photobionts of Acarospora are green algae in the genus Trebouxia.

Fruiting structures

Each wart, areole, or squamule may have 0 to many apothecia. The apothecia are usually immersed in the thallus. Sometimes the apothecia are raised on a wart and surrounded by a margin of thallus-like tissue, sometimes with the margin being a true exciple. The apothecia are usually immersed, and round to very irregular in shape. The apothecial disc is round to squished and irregular, and ranges in colors: black, brown, red, or yellow, or in-between. The disc may be smooth or it may be rough. The asci range from being narrow to being club-shaped (clavate). Spores are colorless, spherical to ellipsoid, and range from tens to hundreds per ascus.

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