Hypogymnia enteromorpha

Hypogymnia enteromorpha, the budding tube lichen or gut lichen, is a species of foliose lichen in the family Parmeliaceae. It is most often found in moist conifer forests of western North America, where it grows on bark and weathered wood. The species forms pale grey, hollow lobes with a black underside and commonly develops small bud-like outgrowths along the margins. It is one of the larger and more conspicuous members of its genus, and is frequently identified with chemical spot tests in addition to its characteristic growth form.

Taxonomy

The lichen was first formally described as a new species in 1803 by Erik Acharius, who named it Parmelia enteromorpha in his 1803 work Methodus qua omnes detectos lichenes. He set it apart from other "Parmelia" species by a combination of overall thallus form and underside coloration. He described a smooth, membranaceous thallus that is white above but black below, with crowded, overlapping lobes that are blunt at the tips and characteristically swollen or inflated. The apothecia were noted as brown and "very entire", i.e., with a neat, unbroken margin. Acharius also cited an earlier name, Lichen intestinalis D.J.E. Smith, indicating that he regarded Smith's concept as referring to the same lichen (or as part of the same circumscription). For locality, he gave "the western shores of boreal America" and credited Archibald Menzies as the collector.