''Bacidina mendax'' is a species of corticolous (bark-dwelling)
lichen
A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.Ramalinaceae. It is found in
Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
and Eastern Europe, where it grows on the bark of twigs and tree branches.
Taxonomy
''Bacidina mendax'' was formally described as a species new to science in 2018 by Paweł Czarnota and Beata Guzow-Krzemińska. The type specimen was collected by the first author between Lúka village and Tematísky hrad Castle (
Považský Inovec
Považský Inovec is a mountain range in western Slovakia, named after the Váh river. It is 48 km (30 mi) long and 15–25 km (9-16 mi) wide mountain range. It is situated from the city of Hlohovec, raising from the Danubia ...
, Slovakia) at an elevation of about ; there, it was growing on a roadside ''
Acer platanoides
''Acer platanoides'', commonly known as the Norway maple, is a species of maple native to eastern and central Europe and western Asia, from Spain east to Russia, north to southern Scandinavia and southeast to northern Iran. It was introduced to ...
'' tree. The species epithet ''mendax'' refers to its similarity with other European members of the genus ''
Bacidina
''Bacidina'' is a genus of lichens in the family Ramalinaceae. It was circumscribed by Czech lichenologist Antonín Vězda in 1990, with '' Bacidina phacodes'' assigned as the type species. Vězda included 11 species in ''Bacidina'', which was o ...
The straw-coloured to bright green thallus of ''Bacidina mendax'' ranges from "inconspicuous to distinct". It comprises tiny granules aggregated together to form a thin, uneven, scaly crust. The photobiont partner of the lichen is chlorococcoid (i.e.,
green algae
The green algae (singular: green alga) are a group consisting of the Prasinodermophyta and its unnamed sister which contains the Chlorophyta and Charophyta/Streptophyta. The land plants (Embryophytes) have emerged deep in the Charophyte alga as ...
from the family Chlorococcaceae), with roughly spherical cells measuring up to 17
μm
The micrometre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: μm) or micrometer (American spelling), also commonly known as a micron, is a unit of length in the International System of Unit ...
in diameter. The apothecia (spore-bearing structures) range in colour from whitish and flesh-coloured throughout, to beige, to pinkish-
buff
Buff or BUFF may refer to:
People
* Buff (surname), a list of people
* Buff (nickname), a list of people
* Johnny Buff, ring name of American world champion boxer John Lisky (1888–1955)
* Buff Bagwell, a ring name of American professional wr ...
, to brownish; they are 0.2–0.7 mm in diameter with a constricted base.
Habitat and distribution
''Bacidina mendax'' is widespread in Central and Eastern Europe. Countries in which it has been verifiably documented are Czech Republic, Great Britain, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine. It has been recorded on a wide variety of
hardwood
Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...
trees and shrubs, and occurs both in
anthropogenic
Anthropogenic ("human" + "generating") is an adjective that may refer to:
* Anthropogeny, the study of the origins of humanity
Counterintuitively, anthropogenic may also refer to things that have been generated by humans, as follows:
* Human im ...
areas (e.g., urban parks, roadside trees) as well as
old-growth forest
An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...