''Palicella lueckingii'' is a species of corticolous (bark-dwelling) in the family

Lecanoraceae The Lecanoraceae are a family of lichenized fungi in the order Lecanorales. Species of this family have a widespread distribution. Taxonomy Lecanoraceae was circumscribed by German lichenologist Gustav Wilhelm Körber in 1855. Genera According ...

. Found in Chile, it was formally described as a new species in 2018 by Pamela Rodriguez-Flakus. The

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wiktionary:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to a ...

was collected from the Malalcahuelo National Reserve, where it was found growing on the bark of '' Araucaria araucana'' in Valdivian temperate rain forest. It is only known to occur at the type locality. The species epithet honours German lichenologist

Robert Lücking Robert Lücking (born 1964) is a German lichenologist. He is a leading expert on foliicolous lichens–lichens that live on leaves. Life and career Born in Ulm in 1964, Lücking earned both his master's (1990) and PhD degree (1994) at the Univer ...

, "who has made an outstanding contribution to the knowledge of Neotropical lichens". Characteristic features of ''Palicella lueckingii'' include its thick

thallus Thallus (plural: thalli), from Latinized Greek (), meaning "a green shoot" or "twig", is the vegetative tissue of some organisms in diverse groups such as algae, fungi, some liverworts, lichens, and the Myxogastria. Many of these organisms wer ...

, apothecia lacking , and small

ascospore An ascus (; ) is the sexual spore-bearing cell produced in ascomycete fungi. Each ascus usually contains eight ascospores (or octad), produced by meiosis followed, in most species, by a mitotic cell division. However, asci in some genera or s ...

s (measuring 10.5–15.5 by 5–6

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 ...

). Lichen products that occur in this species are atranorin, pannarin, and thiophanic acid.

References

Lecanoraceae Lichen species Lichens described in 2018 Lichens of Chile {{Lecanorales-stub