Nephroma orvoi in Western North America

Morris, Claire; Stone, Daphne

The recently described species Nephroma orvoi is part of the Nephroma parile complex. Both species are generally medium to dark brown, with rounded, smooth to distinctly foveolate lobes bearing sorediate to isidiate propagules. The best distinguishing character morphologically is the location of propagule formation. On N. orvoi they originate laminally while on N. parile they originate marginally. However, TLC provides the most accurate identification results, as the two species differ in terpenoids. We examined 76 presumed N. parile herbarium specimens from OSC, both morphologically and by TLC, and found that N. orvoi and N. parile have overlapping ranges in western North America and occur in similar boreal and temperate forest habitats.