Mycoporum Flot. ex Nyl., Mém. Soc. Imp. Sci. Nat. Cherbourg 3: 186 (1855).
MycoBank number: MB 3337; Index Fungorum number: IF 3337; Facesoffungi number: FoF 08310; 12 morphological species (Species Fungorum 2020), molecular data see note below.
Type species – Mycoporum elabens (A. Massal.) Flot. ex Nyl.
≡ Rhizocarpon elabens A. Massal., Ric. auton. lich. crost. (Verona): 103 (1852).
Notes – The taxonomic placement of Mycoporum is unclear (Eriksson 1981, Hyde et al. 2013). Harris (1973) and Poelt (1969) observed M. elabens (type species) and considered it as non- lichenized. Eriksson (1981) had examined old material and was unable to find any algal cells on the specimen, and noted that Mycoporum is probably related to Arthopyreniaceae. Harris (1995) suggested that Mycoporum does not produce a lichen thallus, and that when algae are present, they are not Trentepohlia algae. Lumbsch (1999) treated this genus as non-lichenized based on algae cells that did not have close contact with Mycoporum hyphae. Aptroot et al. (2008) added several species in this genus, however, none of them have molecular data. Hametner et al. (2014) provided sequence data for Mycoporum sparsellum and indicated that it clustered with Acrocordia gemmate as a sister clade to Trentepohlia abietina strains and are as yet unnamed trentepohlialean lineages. However, as this analysis was generated from 18S rRNA and rbcL, more sequence data of Mycoporum with multi-genes are needed to clarify the placement of Mycoporaceae.
Species
Mycoporum elabens