''Acarospora schleicheri'', the soil paint lichen, is a bleached to bright yellow

areolate Lichens are composite organisms made up of multiple species: a fungal partner, one or more photosynthetic partners, and sometimes a basidiomycete yeast. They are regularly grouped by their external appearance – a characteristic known as their ...

squamulose A squamulose lichen is a lichen that is composed of small, often overlapping "scales" called squamules. If they are raised from the substrate and appear leafy, the lichen may appear to be a foliose lichen, but the underside does not have a "ski ...

lichen that commonly grows to on soil (

terricolous A terricolous lichen is a lichen that grows on the soil as a substrate. An example is some members of the genus ''Peltigera ''Peltigera'' is a genus of approximately 100 species of foliose lichens in the family Peltigeraceae. Commonly known as ...

) in

arid A region is arid when it severely lacks available water, to the extent of hindering or preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life. Regions with arid climates tend to lack vegetation and are called xeric or desertic. Most ...

habitats of southern

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

, also in Europe and Africa.Field Guide to California Lichens, Stephen Sharnoff, Yale University Press, 2014, ''Acarospora schleicheri'', Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region. Vol 3., Nash, T.H., Ryan, B.D., Gries, C., Bugartz, F., (eds.) 2001

/ref> It produces rhizocarpic acid as a

secondary metabolite Secondary metabolites, also called specialised metabolites, toxins, secondary products, or natural products, are organic compounds produced by any lifeform, e.g. bacteria, fungi, animals, or plants, which are not directly involved in the norma ...

, which gives it a yellow coloration and serves to protect it from the sun. Its lower surface is also yellow. It can be greenish when moist. Roundish, angular, or irregularly shaped squamules are 0.5–4 mm in diameter. There are 0–1 (sometimes 2–3)

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 ...

embedded in the

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 0.4–1.2 mm roundish black to reddish-brown, or dark brown discs, which sometimes fill the

areola The human areola (''areola mammae'', or ) is the pigmented area on the breast around the nipple. Areola, more generally, is a small circular area on the Human body, body with a different histology from the surrounding Tissue (biology), tissu ...

so as to be lecanorine. It divides

vegetatively Vegetative reproduction (also known as vegetative propagation, vegetative multiplication or cloning) is any form of asexual reproduction occurring in plants in which a new plant grows from a fragment or cutting of the parent plant or spec ...

on the soil. Asci are club shaped (clavate) and have 100 or more spherical to ellipsoid spores. Lichen spot tests are negative, and it is UV+ orange under ultraviolet light.

References

External links

''Acarospora schleicheri'' Images & occurrence data
from

GBIF The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the ...

{{Taxonbar, from=Q10398812 schleicheri Lichen species Lichens of Africa Lichens of Europe Lichens of North America Taxa named by Erik Acharius Lichens described in 1810 Lichens of Australia