Friday 13th: The Workshop

Friday 13th was the day for the workshop and a talk at the institute. The subject was taxonomy and phylogeny of the Ramalinaceae, especially the 'phyllopsoroid' genera.

We were twelve people, looking at the morphological characters used for distinguishing Phyllopsora species, looking at asci stained with iodine, ascospores and cortex types for distinguishing similar genera (Bacidiopsora, Eschatogonia, Krogia), and - the big event - setting up thin-layer chromatography for identifying lichen substances.

See the tank on the table in the background

Here is the second plate. Most surprising was track 17: norstictic acid  - diagnostic of Phyllopsora imshaugii, previously only known from the summit area of the Blue Mountains in Jamaica! (Well, we know a few others, unpublished). Need to study it more closely, though. Tracks 1-3, 5, 18-19 are furfuraceic acid, diagnostic of P. furfuracea and a few others. There are two chemotypes of P. buettneri in our collections: tracks 11-12 (vicanicin, zeorin) and 13 (pannarin, phyllopsorin, zeorin). Track 16 is methyl barbatate (top) and an unknown compund (below), i.e. P. glaucescens. The other tracks are mostly references.

Another great discovery when going through herbarium material: The genus Krogia new to South America! The species, K. antillarum, is published from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago - but we also know it from Mexico and Guatemala. There were two collections from Venezuela stored under Phyllopsora in VEN, but, sorry, I forgot to take photos. See photos, etc. at our Krogia-site: nhm2.uio.no/lichens/Krogia.

Relaxing after the workshop

Kermit,our guest researcher