Pacific Dust Lichen

Lepraria pacifica, the Pacific dust lichen, is a whitish-blue-green leprose crustose lichen that grows on its substrate like patches of granular, caked-up, mealy dust grains. Like other members of the Lepraria genus, it only reproduces asexually.

The main vegetative body (thallus) is made of patches of soredia, little balls of algae wrapped in fungus. The thallus body may be discontinuous, starting off as isolated granules that divide to form aggregations that then merge to form a 0.1– 0.7 mm crust without a cortex (ecorticate). It gradually forms an organized pseudocortex. The photobiont consists of green globose coccoid cells. It produces a thick thallus and (usually) lacks rhizohyphae and ascending thallus margins.