Rhizoplaca parilis
species of Lecanoromycetes
Rhizoplaca parilis is a crustose lichen in the family Lecanoraceae. Described in 2011, it was separated from the Rhizoplaca melanophthalma complex after molecular studies showed it forms an independent evolutionary lineage. It typically forms tightly attached, rosette-shaped growths with radiating lobes and a yellow-green surface, often featuring a dark, glossy centre when fruiting bodies are present. R. parilis occurs on exposed siliceous rock from about 2,000 metres up to 3,500 metres in habitats ranging from pinyon–juniper woodland to alpine tundra across North America, Europe, Asia and South America.
Taxonomy
Rhizoplaca parilis was formally described in 2011 by Steven Leavitt, Félix Fernández-Mendoza, H. Thorsten Lumbsch, Mohammad Sohrabi and Larry St Clair from material collected on basalt at 2,875 m (9,432 ft) elevation on Thousand Lake Mountain, Utah. Molecular work that analysed several nuclear and mitochondrial loci resolved the species as "clade IVb" within the Rhizoplaca melanophthalma complex. Both the combined gene tree and a species-delimitation test strongly support treating it as a separate lineage. Although the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences of known specimens differ by only about 0.3%, they are more closely related to each other than to any other member of the complex. Phylogenetically, R. parilis forms part of a well-supported clade that also contains R. occulta, R. polymorpha, R. porterii and the obligately unattached vagrant species R. haydenii and R. idahoensis. The epithet parilis (Latin for 'similar') refers to the close outward resemblance between the new taxon and several others in the genus.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Rhizoplaca parilis” as species of Lecanoromycetes. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of Lecanoromycetes. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28403081. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2011.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rhizoplaca parilis” 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.