Atla wheldonii
species of fungus
Atla wheldonii is a species of terricolous (ground-dwelling), crustose lichen in the family Verrucariaceae. Found in Europe, it was formally described as a new species in 1947 by William Gladstone Travis from specimens collected from sand dunes in Lancashire, England, in 1924. Sanja Savić and Leif Tibell transferred the taxon to genus Atla in 2008 following molecular phylogenetic analysis that showed that it, along with three other Northern European species, comprised a distinct clade in the Verrucariacae.
In additional to the British Isles, Atla wheldonii has also been recorded in the Pyrenees, Austria, and Scandinavia. It grows on basic soil, usually alongside mosses and cyanobacteria; typical lichen associates include Thelocarpon impressellum and Solorina spongiosa, and sometimes Polyblastia helvetica. Atla wheldonii has a thin and poorly developed thallus, and ascomata in the forms or perithecia that are immersed in the thallus.
Description
Atla wheldonii is a crustose lichen characterised by its thin, slightly glossy thallus (main body) that appears minutely bumpy (verrucose) and dark green in colour. The thallus becomes gelatinous when wet and is often only noticeable close to the fruiting bodies. While the primary photobiont (photosynthetic partner) is a green alga, colonies of cyanobacteria frequently occur in close association with both the thallus and perithecia (flask-shaped fruiting structures).
The perithecia of A. wheldonii are relatively small, averaging 0.39 mm in diameter, and are typically spherical or have a slightly extended opening (ostiolum).
“Atla wheldonii” enters the record as species of fungus. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Atla, wheldonii and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Atla wheldonii” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Atla, wheldonii and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 1, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q10421617. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1947, 1924 and 2008.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Atla wheldonii” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.