Patellaria

Paddys River, ACT

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Identification history

	Patellaria	8 Jul 2016	Heino
	Unidentified	7 Jul 2016	KenT

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User's notes

Count is of visible colonies as indicated by dark lines separating light areas on decorticated wood in the third image

2 comments

Heino wrote:

8 Jul 2016

The photos don't provide indisputable proof of this being a species of Patellaria, but they do provide good circumstantial evidence. Patellaria fruiting bodies are a little unusual in that they keep a neat discoid shape when dry (whereas many of the discoid ascomycetes become noticeably distorted on drying). When dry I've found the black disks to be fairly hard but they become a little gelatinous on wetting. Small black dots on wood can be a problem because there is always the question of whether, rather than seeing a non-lichenized fungus, you are looking at the fungal fruiting bodies of a lichen (and, to make it more of a challenge, some wood-inhabiting lichens can have fairly indistinct thalli, with the fruiting bodies being the dominant feature). However, the odd conversation or two with a lichenologist friend during field work has led me to go for the non-lichenized Patellaria when I see this sort of look in a photo.

KenT wrote:

13 Jul 2016

Thanks Heino, I hadn't realized this genus had non-lichenized species in it.

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