Caprettia Bat. & H. Maia, Atas Inst Micol Univ Pernambuco 2: 377 (1965).

MycoBank number: MB 813; Index Fungorum number: IF 813; Facesoffungi number: FoF 08074; 8 morphologically defined species (this paper), molecular data thus far unavailable.

Lichenized on leaves, in tropical regions. Thallus ecorticate, greenish, subcuticular (subgenus Caprettia) or supracuticular (subgenus Porinula). Photobiont trentepohloid. Ascomata scattered (absent in subgenus Caprettia), sessile, subglobose, yellowish to red-brown or brown-black, carbonaceous or not, glabrous or with short to conspicuous, horizontal setae, ostiolate, ostiole apical. Involucrellum reduced, carbonized or not. Excipulum dense, consisting of compressed hyphae, appearing prosoplectenchymatous in thin sections, hyaline to brown. Hamathecium comprising 0.5–0.7 µm wide paraphyses, hyaline, straight, branched and anastomosing. Asci (2–)4–8-spored, bitunicate, fissitunicate, cylindrical, short pedicellate, with broad, non-amyloid ocular chamber and fluorescent cap-structures. Ascospores uni- seriate, ellipsoid-oval to sometimes curved, hyaline, 1-septate, smooth. Pycnidia frequent, typically hair-like (subgenus Caprettia) or long-beaked with often slightly inflated base (subgenus Porinula). Conidia acrogenous, microconidia, aseptate, ellipsoid, small, hyaline, within pycnidial tube aggregated into gelatinous, rectangular sacci extruded from pycnidial beak as single diaspores.

Chemistry: Secondary substances absent.

Type species: Caprettia amazonensis Bat. & H. Maia, Atas Inst Micol Univ Pernambuco 2: 378 (1965).

Notes: For illustrations of selected species, see Lücking et al. in Hyde et al. (2013). This genus includes several phenotytically disparate elements. The type species, C. amazonensis, grows subcuticularly and produces black, hair-like, straight pycnidia (no ascomata). Subgenus Porinula Lücking & Sérus. presents supracuticular growth and includes two distinct groups. The type species, C. tanzanica, as well as C. ornata, C. setifera, C. goderei, C. neotropica, and C. nyssogenoides, all frequently produce long-beaked pycnidia and intergrade from very pale and glabrous to black and distinctly setose ascomata. A further species, C. confusa, differs in the absence of pycnidia and the large ascospores, resembling those of Trypetheliopsis (Sérusiaux and Lücking 2003; Lücking 2008; Yeshitela et al. 2009). In lieu of molecular data, these taxa are here kept in a single genus, although it is unclear whether they form a monophyletic group and to what extend they are related to Anisomeridium sensu lato and Trypetheliopsis (see also Harris 1995).

Sérusiaux and Lücking (2003) introduced Caprettia subgenus Porinula as a combination based on Porinula [non Porinula (Nyl.) Flagey], overlooking that an illegitimate later homonym cannot serve as base for a legitimate combination. The name must therefore be considered a replacement name, Caprettia subgenus Porinula [ICN Art. 58.1]. At the genus level, however, the replacement name Porinella R. Sant. has priority.

Species