Thanks to its very long, usually more than 20-septate ascospores and a specific pigmentation (the prominent purple reaction with K+ of the pigments in fruiting bodies), B. polychroa is microscopically unmistakable. The lichen is usually found on a subneutral bark of trees, such as Fraxinus sp. and Acer platanoides. It is a characteristic species of moist lowland forests. Bacidia polychroa is distributed across a large part of Europe and in the eastern North America (Ekman 1996) and reaches even subtropics. All the historical data from the Czech Republic were compiled from south Moravia (the Haná region and the surroundings of Brno) in the short period of about 10 years at the beginning of the 20th century. The lichen was introduced as new for the country by Picbauer (1910), who defined it as “…a species abundant on ash trees around the city of Kroměříž.” There is only one recent record confirming its occurrence in the Haná region, namely in the Drahanská vrchovina upland (Svoboda et al. 2008). Otherwise, the lichen was not found during the recent surveys in south Moravia and nowadays, it is classified as critically endangered.
Literature: Picbauer R. (1910): Lišejníky sbírané v okolí Kroměříže. – Věstník Klubu Přírodovědného v Prostějově 13: 135–147. Ekman S. (1996): The corticolous and lignicolous species of Bacidia and Bacidina in North America. – Opera Botanica 127: 1–148. Svoboda D., Bouda F., Halda J. P., Kukwa M., Liška J., Malíček J., Müller A., Palice Z., Peksa O., Szymczyk R. & Schiefelbein U. (2008): Lišejníky zaznamenané během 14. jarního setkání Bryologicko-lichenologické sekce ČBS na exkurzích na Vyškovsku na Moravě. – Bryonora 41: 12–20.
taxonomic classification:Ascomycota → Lecanoromycetes → Lecanorales → Ramalinaceae → Bacidia
All records: 2, confirmed 1. One click on a selected square displays particular record(s), including their source(s).