Niorma chrysophthalma

A fruticose lichen growing on the bark of living shrub branches, until recently known as Teloschistes chrysophthalmus, yellowish-green, with abundant bright orange apothecia fringed by cilia along the margin.

Photobiont alga of the genus Trebouxia.

One characteristic of the species is the apothecia, which turn reddish-purple in KOH.

Asci clavate, eight-spored (octosporic), 45 to 60 µm long by 10 to 18 µm wide, with spore arrangement within the ascus biseriate to irregular, and with an amyloid reaction of the wall and apical apparatus in Melzer's reagent.

Paraphyses filiform, multiseptate, with apical branching, 1.5 to 2.5 µm wide, with apical cell swellings 3 to 5 µm wide, bearing an orange amorphous substance at the apex, and barely or not at all projecting above the level of the asci.

Ascospores ellipsoidal, polarilocular, smooth, hyaline, moderately thick-walled, 12 to 17 µm long by 6.5 to 8.5 µm wide, with two large cells, one at each end, connected by a narrow central canal.