Fissurina submonospora
Fissurina submonospora is a species of corticolous, crustose lichen in the family Graphidaceae. Described in 2012 from specimens collected in India's Western Ghats, this lichen forms brownish-grey to dark brown crusts on tree bark in moist evergreen forests. It produces large single ascospores divided into brick-like compartments within each reproductive cell, a feature that distinguishes it from most related species which typically contain eight smaller spores.
Taxonomy
Fissurina submonospora is a script lichen in the family Graphidaceae. It was described as new to science in 2012 by Bharati Sharma, Pradnya Khadilkar and Urmila Makhija, who designated a holotype collected on 24 January 1983 from Upper Kodayar, Tamil Nadu. The authors placed the species in Fissurina section dumastii because of its immersed, fissure-like fruit bodies and single-spored asci. They noted that it resembles F. monospora but differs in having markedly smaller ascospores and lacking lichen substances in the thallus.Description
The thallus forms a brownish-grey to dark-brown crust that cracks and becomes wart-like with age; a dark line marks its edge. Its – the narrow, slit-shaped fruiting bodies typical of script lichens – are short, straight or slightly branched, and sit flush with the surface. Each lirella is lined by an that is orange-brown but not .Inside, the colourless hymenium is 125–150 micrometres tall. Every ascus contains a single, very large ascospore that is muriform—divided by many cross-walls into brick-like chambers—and surrounded by a gelatinous up to 10 μm thick. No secondary metabolites were detected in spot tests or thin-layer chromatography.