''Pertusaria'' is a large

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of warty

crustose Crustose is a habit of some types of algae and lichens in which the organism grows tightly appressed to a substrate, forming a biological layer. ''Crustose'' adheres very closely to the substrates at all points. ''Crustose'' is found on rocks ...

lichens in the Pertusariaceae family.Field Guide to California Lichens, Stephen Sharnoff, Yale University Press, 2014, The fruiting bodies are usually modified

apothecia An ascocarp, or ascoma (), is the fruiting body ( sporocarp) of an ascomycete phylum fungus. It consists of very tightly interwoven hyphae and millions of embedded asci, each of which typically contains four to eight ascospores. Ascocarps are mos ...

that immersed in warts on the main body (

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 ...

) with small holes for the spores to emerge, similar to ostioles, or are fully above and lecanorine (spore bearing discs surrounded by a ring of tissue similar to the tissue of the thallus. Members of the genus are commonly called wart lichens. The widespread genus contains over 500 species. Classification in the large genus relies heavily on

chemistry to distinguish and classify species, some of which differ only in the presence or absence of a single secondary chemical.

Lichexanthone Lichexanthone is an organic compound in the structural class of chemicals known as xanthones. Lichexanthone was first isolated and identified by Japanese chemists from a species of leafy lichen in the 1940s. The compound is known to occur in ma ...

, norlichexanthone, and their chlorinated derivatives are common in this genus.

Selected species

* '' Pertusaria amara'' * '' Pertusaria californica'' *'' Pertusaria diluta'' * '' Pertusaria favicunda'' * '' Pertusaria lactea'' * '' Pertusaria opthalmazia'' * '' Pertusaria rubefacta'' * '' Pertusaria subambigens'' * '' Pertusaria velata'' * '' Pertusaria xanthodes''

References

Lichen genera Pertusariales genera Taxa named by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle Taxa described in 1805 {{Pertusariales-stub