Candelaria fruticans

Opeltiella fruticans has a thallus that attaches to the substrate at its base but soon develops strongly ascending lobes. These lobes are irregularly divided into smaller segments, with their tips appearing ragged or scalloped. The thallus is yellow to yellow-green on the upper side. The underside of the lobes is whitish to pale yellow, becoming covered with a powdery layer of yellow soredia that may extend from the tips to the middle or even to the base. The soredia arise mainly from the ecorticate lower side of the lobes rather than from margins. Rhizines (root-like anchoring structures) are absent or very sparse. The cortex is made of irregularly interwoven fungal hyphae, giving it a patchy thickness of 15–50 μm. No apothecia (fruiting bodies) have been observed, but pycnidia (structures producing asexual spores) are immersed within the thallus. Conidia are ellipsoid, about 2.5–3 × 1.5 μm.

The lichen grows on soil and over mosses in high-elevation habitats. It was first collected in páramo environments of the Venezuelan Andes, particularly the páramo of Mucuchíes near the El Águila pass in Mérida State at 3,500–3,800 m altitude. Additional specimens were found at La Pedregosa, west of Mérida, around 2,000 m. Beyond Venezuela, verified records (as Candelaria fruticans) document a scattered, trans-Atlantic distribution in the tropics and subtropics. In Costa Rica it was found on dry twigs of Cupressus at 2,150 m (Cartago Province); in Peru on shrubs on dry, rocky slopes at roughly 200–500 m (Cerro de Reque, Lambayeque); in Kenya on twigs on deforested hillsides at 2,180–2,400 m (Rift Valley Province, Ngong Hills); and in South Africa on planted trees in the eastern Transvaal, a high-lying escarpment overlooking the Kruger lowlands (Pilgrims Rest District, Graskop). Taken together, these collections indicate that the species is most often corticolous on woody hosts from low- to high-montane belts, with the Venezuelan terricolous type locality an outlier.

== References ==