{{Short description|Genus of lichen-forming fungi}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2025}} {{Use Oxford spelling|date=June 2025}} {{Automatic taxobox | image = Catinaria atropurpurea.jpg | image_caption = ''Catinaria atropurpurea'' on ''Frullania tamarisci'' | taxon = Catinaria | authority = Vain. (1922) | type_species = ''Catinaria montana'' | type_species_authority = (Nyl.) Vain. 1922 }}
'''''Catinaria''''' is a genus of lichen-forming fungi in the family Ramalinaceae.<ref name="CoL_CCY6F"/> These lichens form very thin, often barely visible crusts on bark, rock, or moss, and are recognizable by their small, round, reddish-brown to black fruiting bodies that sit flush with the surface. The genus includes eight known species, some of which grow specifically on liverworts and can behave almost like decomposer fungi.
==Taxonomy==
The genus was circumscribed by the Finnish lichenologist Edvard August Vainio in 1922, with ''Catinaria montana'' assigned as the type species. Vainio's original description emphasized the genus's distinctive combination of features: a dark, crusty thallus with a prominent raised margin, club-shaped spore-producing structures (asci), and small elliptical ascospores measuring about 8–9 micrometres long. He distinguished ''Catinaria'' from the closely related genus ''Lecidea'' based on these morphological characteristics, particularly the thallus structure and spore dimensions.<ref name="Vainio 1922"/>
==Description==
''Catinaria'' species form very thin crusts on bark, rock or, in a few cases, directly on mosses, where the fungus can behave almost like a saprotroph. The surface is usually granular or broken into inconspicuous microscopic islands; in some specimens the thallus is so scant that it appears absent altogether. There is no protective outer skin ({{lichengloss|cortex}}) and the crust never produces the powdery reproductive patches (soralia) common in many lichens, although one still-unnamed species develops tiny finger-like isidia. The photosynthetic partner is a globose green alga of the ''Dictyochloropsis'' group.<ref name="Cannon et al. 2024"/>
The sexual structures are small, round apothecia that sit flush with, or slightly raised above, the thallus. They begin reddish-brown and may darken to dull black with age. Because the apothecia lack a rim of thallus tissue, the {{lichengloss|disc}} merges directly into the {{lichengloss|true exciple}}—a cup wall built from radiating hyphae that is initially the same colour as the disc but may turn darker and eventually erode away. Inside, the spore layer is threaded by slender paraphyses whose tips swell slightly and often carry a coloured cap. The asci hold eight to sixteen ascospores; they are "''Catillaria''-type", meaning their upper dome stains a uniform blue in iodine rather than showing a differentiated inlay. Spores are ellipsoid, colourless and usually divided by a single cross-wall (very rarely three); each is wrapped in a closely fitting gelatinous envelope ({{lichengloss|perispore}}) that remains clear under the microscope. No asexual conidia have yet been reported, and thin-layer chromatography has so far failed to detect any diagnostic lichen products. The combination of spores with a compact perispore and the simple, undifferentiated ascus apex separates ''Catinaria'' from superficially similar crustose genera such as ''Catillaria'', ''Megalaria'' and ''Phyllopsora''.<ref name="Cannon et al. 2024"/>
==Species==
*''Catinaria atropurpurea'' {{au|(Schaer.) Vězda & Poelt (1981)}} *''Catinaria brodoana'' {{au|R.C.Harris & W.R.Buck (2016)}}<ref name="Lendemer et al. 2016"/> *''Catinaria isidioides'' {{au|Sanderson, P.F.Cannon & Aptroot (2024)}}<ref name="Cannon et al. 2024"/> *''Catinaria montana'' {{au|(Nyl.) Vain. (1922)}} *''Catinaria neuschildii'' {{au|(Körb.) P.James (1965)}}<ref name="James 1965"/> *''Catinaria occidentalis'' {{au|Van den Boom (2020)}}<ref name="van den Boom 2020"/> *''Catinaria radulae'' {{au|R.C.Harris & W.R.Buck (2016)}}<ref name="Lendemer et al. 2016"/> *''Catinaria subcorallina'' {{au|(Zahlbr.) Brako (1987)}}<ref name="Egan 1987"/>
==References== {{Reflist|colwidth=30em|refs=
<ref name="Cannon et al. 2024">{{cite book |last1=Cannon |first1=P. |last2=Coppins |first2=B. |last3=Aptroot |first3=A. |last4=Fryday |first4=A. |last5=Sanderson |first5=N. |last6=Simkin |first6=J. |last7=Yahr |first7=R. |year=2024 |title=Miscellaneous Lecanorales including ''Biatorella'' (Biatorellaceae), ''Carbonicola'' (Carbonicolaceae), ''Haematomma'' (Haematommataceae), ''Psilolechia'' (Psilolechiaceae), ''Ramboldia'' (Ramboldiaceae), ''Scoliciosporum'' (Scoliciosporaceae), and ''Adelolecia'', ''Catinaria'', ''Frutidella'', ''Herteliana'', ''Lithocalla'', ''Myochroidea'', ''Puttea'' and ''Schadonia'' (of uncertain position) |series=Revisions of British and Irish Lichens |volume=42 |pages=12–13 |url=https://britishlichensociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/Lecanorales%20misc%20genera.pdf}}</ref>
<ref name="CoL_CCY6F">{{Catalogue of Life |id=CCY6F |title=''Catinaria'' |access-date=16 June 2025}}</ref>
<ref name="Egan 1987">{{cite journal |last=Egan |first=Robert S. |title=A fifth checklist of the lichen-forming, lichenicolous and allied fungi of the continental United States and Canada |journal=The Bryologist |volume=90 |issue=2 |year=1987 |page=77–173 [163] |jstor=3242609 |doi=10.2307/3242609}}</ref>
<ref name="James 1965">{{cite journal |last=James |first=P.W. |title=A new check-list of British lichens |journal=The Lichenologist |volume=3 |issue=1 |year=1965 |doi=10.1017/S0024282965000130 |pages=95–153 [97]|bibcode=1965ThLic...3...95J }}</ref>
<ref name="Lendemer et al. 2016">{{cite journal |last1=Lendemer |first1=James C. |last2=Buck |first2=William R. |last3=Harris |first3=Richard C. |title=Two new host-specific hepaticolous species of ''Catinaria'' (Ramalinaceae) |journal=The Lichenologist |volume=48 |issue=5 |year=2016 |doi=10.1017/S0024282916000438 |pages=441–449|bibcode=2016ThLic..48..441L }}</ref>
<ref name="Vainio 1922">{{cite journal |last=Vainio |first=E.A. |year=1922 |title=Lichenographia Fennica. II. Baeomyceae et Lecideales |journal=Acta Societatis Pro Fauna et Flora Fennica |volume=53 |issue=1 |page=143 |language=la}}</ref>
<ref name="van den Boom 2020">{{cite journal |last=van den Boom |first=P.P.G. |year=2020 |title=Further interesting lichens and lichenicolous fungi from Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain), with the description of two new species |website=Ascomycete.org |volume=12 |issue=5 |pages=199–204}}</ref>
}}
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Category:Ramalinaceae Category:Lichen genera Category:Lecanorales genera Category:Taxa named by Edvard August Vainio Category:Taxa described in 1922