''Alyxoria wainioi '' is a species of

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.Lecanographaceae ''Lecanographaceae'' is a family of mostly lichens (also some lichenicolous fungi) in the order Arthoniales. The family was circumscribed in 2014, prompted by a molecular phylogenetic-based restructuring of the Arthoniales. Description Lecanogra ...

. It was originally formally described by Finnish lichenologist

Edvard August Vainio Edvard August Vainio (born Edvard Lang; 5 August 185314 May 1929) was a Finnish lichenology, lichenologist. His early works on the lichens of Lapland (Finland), Lapland, his three-volume monograph on the lichen genus ''Cladonia'', and, in parti ...

in 1901, as ''Opegrapha ochracea''. Vainio identified it as a new species from samples collected in Africa by Austrian botanist

Friedrich Martin Josef Welwitsch Friedrich Martin Josef Welwitsch (25 February 1806 – 20 October 1872) was an Austrian Empire, Austrian exploration, explorer and botany, botanist who in Angola was the first European to describe the plant ''Welwitschia, Welwitschia mirabilis ...

. However, this name was not validly published as it was an illegitimate

homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones (equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definition, ...

; in 1824

Johann Adam Philipp Hepp Johann Adam Philipp Hepp (26 October 1797, in Kaiserslautern – 5 February 1867, in Frankfurt am Main) was a German physician and lichenologist. He studied medicine at the University of Würzburg, and from 1826 worked as a doctor in Neustadt ...

had transferred ''Arthonia ochracea'', a lichen originally named by Léon Marie Dufour in 1818, into genus ''Opegrapha'', and thus the name ''Opegrapha ochracea'' was already occupied by this

taxon In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

. So in 1923,

Alexander Zahlbruckner Alexander Zahlbruckner (31 May 1860, Svätý Jur – 1938, Vienna) was an Austrian- Hungarian botanist who specialized in the study of lichens. Johann Babtist Zahlbruckner, an earlier Austrian botanist, was his grandfather. From 1878 to 1883 ...

renamed Vainio's taxon as ''Opegrapha wainioi''. Nearly a century later, it was transferred to genus ''

Alyxoria ''Alyxoria'' is a genus of lichen-forming fungi in the family Lecanographaceae. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution In biogeography, cosmopolitan distribution is the term for the range of a taxon that extends across all or most of the ...

'' in 2018 by Indian lichenologists following a revision of the genus ''

Opegrapha ''Opegrapha'' is a genus of lichenized fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organi ...

''.

References

Arthoniomycetes Lichen species Lichens of Africa Lichens described in 1923 Taxa named by Alexander Zahlbruckner {{Arthoniomycetes-stub