Lecanora

It is in the family Lecanoraceae in the suborder Lecanorineae.

Description

Lecanora has a crustose thallus, trebouxioid photobiont, colourless ascospores and crystals in the amphothecium.

Swiss lichenologist Rosmarie Honegger used electron microscopy in the late 1970s to investigate ascus structure in several major groups of lichen-forming fungi. She defined the Lecanora-type ascus as one characterized by several distinctive features: (1) a non-amyloid, clear ascus wall that is encased in an amyloid outer layer often described as a fuzzy coat; (2) an amyloid dome filled with granular inclusions set within a clear matrix; (3) a clear central layer inside the dome; and (4) a method of opening, or dehiscence, that is rostrate (resembling the shape of a bird's beak – the ascus has a pointed or protruding tip from which the spores are released).