New species records refresh Italy’s map of algae, mosses, fungi and lichens

Italy’s botanical inventory has just grown considerably larger, thanks to a new installment of an ongoing national census that documents where algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens occur across the country’s regions. The fourteenth set of notulae, published in the journal Italian Botanist, compiles dozens of records contributed by field botanists, mycologists and lichenologists, ranging from a stonewort discovered in a small Tuscan pond to a lichen so rare that it had been assessed as Regionally Extinct in Italy.

The algal contribution concerns Chara gymnophylla, a member of the stonewort genus Chara, which was found growing densely in a small permanent pond on the south side of Groppo del Vescovo near Pontremoli in the province of Massa-Carrara, at 1119 metres elevation. The pond covers no more than 100 square metres and lies not far from the border between the provinces of Massa-Carrara and Parma. The collection, made on 3 September 2021 and determined by R. Bolpagni, represents the first record of the species for the flora of Toscana. The authors note that the species’ diagnostic characters are highly variable, which has led some authors to treat it as a variety of Chara vulgaris and others as Chara contraria, but it is currently accepted as an independent species. Within Italy, C. gymnophylla had previously been recorded from Veneto, Liguria, Umbria, Lazio and Sicilia.

The bryophyte section is among the richest in the collection, with records for the genera Bryum, Grimmia, Cephaloziella, Hypnum, Nogopterium, Physcomitrium, Polytrichastrum, Rhynchostegiella, Saelania and Schistostega. Several mosses were newly documented for Trentino-Alto Adige, including Bryum gemmiparum, found on limestone boulders emerging from the Sarca river near Dro, and Cephaloziella baumgartneri, collected beneath a protrusion of a slightly humid limestone cliff above Tempesta. Although the Cephaloziella samples were sterile, the authors report that the markedly basic growth environment allowed a safe identification. Grimmia dissimulata, a species described only in 2001, was also new for the region, found on a limestone cliff in Valle delle Gole; its rarity in Italy is possibly explained by that recent description, and it differs from the similar G. trichophylla mainly in short rectangular basal leaf cells, hyaline cells at the leaf border and a preference for basic rather than acidic substrates.

Other bryophyte entries highlight how old records and modern surveys can be reconciled. Hypnum cupressiforme var. filiforme, a Mediterranean-boreal moss of tree trunks and vertical cliffs, is now recorded for the flora of Sardegna on the basis of collections made between 1995 and 2021, mostly on holm oak and strawberry tree, with the authors noting that the taxon may ultimately prove to be an ecological variant. Nogopterium gracile was confirmed for Liguria at Portofino Regional Park, its most recent regional record having dated back to 1902. Polytrichastrum alpinum, a circumpolar boreo-arctic montane species, was confirmed for Sicilia on Mount Etna at 1880 metres, having previously been found in the Madonie mountains more than a century ago. Saelania glaucescens, recognizable by the glaucous green colour of its leaves caused by a covering of waxy rods, was confirmed for Calabria, where it had previously been reported only from Gioia Tauro in the nineteenth century.

Two further bryophyte records carry conservation weight. Physcomitrium eurystomum subsp. eurystomum was found on the mud of a recently dried-up paddy field south-west of Pellegrina in Veneto, a first for the region; in Italy it had been confirmed after 1968 only for Sicilia, and it is listed as Vulnerable at the European level. Schistostega pennata, the famous luminous moss whose persistent protonema reflects light thanks to the optical properties of its convex cells, was confirmed for Lazio in the volcanic cave Grotta Pozzo del Diavolo on Monte Venere, growing on lava rock in low light alongside Isopterygiopsis pulchella. In Italy the species occurs in Valle d’Aosta, Piemonte, Lombardia, Trentino-Alto Adige and Puglia, with old records from Liguria, and its presence in Lazio had previously been reported only generically in 1897.

The fungal records include four species new to individual regions. Cortinarius scaurotraganoides, characterized by a whitish-cream to ochre brown pileus, cream to ochre flesh that is orange at the stem base, and a fruity odour reminiscent of Cortinarius traganus, was documented from a 2012 collection under oak and pine near Sassello in Liguria, a species otherwise documented in France and Hungary and reported in Italy from Piemonte and Lombardia. Three saprotrophic fungi were new for Calabria, all collected in or near the Botanical Garden of the University of Calabria at Rende. Lentinellus ursinus appeared as a fasciculate cluster of five spatula-shaped caps on a decaying oak branch, producing hyaline, strongly amyloid spores; Omphalina pyxidata was detected as about a dozen brown, funnel-shaped fruiting bodies in a grassy clearing between oaks; and Xerophorus olivascens, currently separated from the genus Callistosporium, grew among the dead needles of a planted Atlas cedar, with green-yellowish gills and amygdaliform spores. In Italy, all three had been recorded mainly in northern and central regions.

Among the lichens, the most striking entries concern species recorded in Italy for the first time. Candelariella boleana, an epiphytic species widespread in southern and central Europe with a single earlier record from the Swiss Alps, was found on the bark of beech in a forest near Pratovecchio in Toscana; its thallus consists of small scattered yellow to greenish-yellow granules, and it is the only species in the genus known to have orbicular spores, 16 to 32 per ascus, which makes it easy to distinguish from all other species. Ramalina arsenii, a small fruticose lichen with a pale yellowish green thallus whose erect branches become sorediate beneath in old thalli, was collected on basalt outcrops at two neighbouring sites in the Ligurian Trebbia Valley, in a mixed forest dominated by chestnut, Turkey oak and sycamore maple. Lichinella myriospora, a crustose cyanolichen from a taxonomically difficult group, was recorded on limestone fragments in dry grassland in the Foreste Casentinesi National Park; the authors note that its separation from a related species still rests on a stronger development of the thalline web covering the hymenium.

Several regional records carry direct implications for conservation assessments. Ochrolechia frigida, a crustose lichen of plant debris in high-altitude habitats on acidic substrates, was confirmed for Lombardia at two alpine sites near the Gavia pass, at 2378 and 2659 metres; it had been reported previously in the region only from a few localities in Valtellina, and because it had been assessed as Regionally Extinct in the recent Italian Red List of terricolous lichens, the authors state that it should now be reassessed. Nephroma tangeriense, a Mediterranean-Atlantic species of humid areas assessed as Vulnerable in the Red List of Italian epiphytic lichens, was newly recorded for both Liguria and Emilia-Romagna, distinguished from the similar N. laevigatum by its many laminal and marginal phyllidia. Ropalospora viridis, previously reported from Italy only once, from Friuli Venezia Giulia, and listed as data deficient, was found on the bark of silver fir in Lombardia, on the same tree as Megalaria pulverea, itself new for the region.

The remaining lichen entries fill further gaps in the national picture. Graphis pulverulenta was newly recorded for Umbria and Lazio, with an additional record for Molise, based on collections made between 1993 and 2004 and previously filed under the broader G. scripta group. Gyalolechia fulgida, a crustose-placodioid lichen of calcareous rock with an optimum in the Mediterranean belt, was new for Marche. Hypogymnia farinacea, common in the subalpine coniferous forests of the Alps but rare in the Apennines, was new for Liguria on larch trunks on Mount Pietravecchia. Peltigera venosa was confirmed for Emilia-Romagna after previous records from the nineteenth century, and Placidium lachneum was confirmed for Lombardia, its only previous regional record dating to 1927. Rhizoplaca subdiscrepans yielded only its second Italian record, in the Orobic Alps, while Cladonia rangiformis was new for Valle d’Aosta and Cladonia foliacea was confirmed there, with a fifty-year-old bibliographic record from the Valli di Cogne now verified against the original exsiccatum. Toniniopsis verrucarioides and Zahlbrucknerella calcarea, both poorly collected in Italy and the Alps, were new for Veneto in the Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park, and Usnea intermedia was new for Liguria from two alpine sites.

Taken together, the fourteenth set of notulae shows how much remains to be learned about Italy’s cryptogamic flora even in well-studied landscapes, and how herbarium material, historical literature and targeted fieldwork combine to correct the record. The entries also underline the role of regional checklists in flagging species whose status may change, from a stonewort quietly expanding its documented range to a lichen brought back from an official declaration of regional extinction. The compilation invites contributions from researchers across the country, with records submitted through designated editors for each of the four groups, and it sets the stage for further installments in this long-running census of the Italian flora.

Subject of Research: New floristic records of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens across Italian regions

Article Title: Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 14

Article References: Ravera, S., Puglisi, M., Vizzini, A., Totti, C., Aleffi, M., Bacilliere, G., Benesperi, R., Bianchi, E., Boccardo, F., Bolpagni, R., von Brackel, W., Canali, G., Celli, G., Cogoni, A., De Giuseppe, A. B., Di Natale, S., Di Nuzzo, L., Dovana, F., Gheza, G., … Vallese, C. (2022). Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 14. Italian Botanist, 14, 61-80. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.14.95956

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.14.95956

Keywords: Italy, floristic records, bryophytes, lichens, fungi, stoneworts, Chara gymnophylla, Candelariella boleana, Ochrolechia frigida, biodiversity inventory, conservation status, Italian Botanist