Lepra is a genus of lichen-forming fungi in the family Pertusariaceae. Although the genus was created in 1777, it was not regularly used until it was resurrected in 2016 following molecular phylogenetic analyses. It has more than 80 species, most of which were previously classified in genus Pertusaria.
The genus was originally circumscribed by Austrian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli in 1777.[2] Martyn Dibben designated Lichen albescens (=Lepra albescens) as a neotype for the genus in 1980.[3] In 2015, Kondratyuk and colleagues proposed the new genus Marfloraea to contain 13 members of the Variola group (one of four major clades identified in Pertusaria in the broad sense), with Marfloraea amara (=Lepra amara) selected as the type.[4] The proposed genus was rejected a year later when Josef Hafellner and Ayşen Türk explained that the new genus name was superfluous because older available names existed that should have instead been used.[5] Consequently, the genus Lepra was reinstated to contain species formerly placed in the Pertusaria albescens species group.[1]
Genus Lepra contains crustose lichens with the following features: disc-like ascomata; a hymenial gel that is weakly amyloid to non-amyloid; asci that are strongly amyloid but lack clear amyloid structures at their tips; and asci containing one or two single-layered, thin-walled ascospores.[1]
As of January 2022, Species Fungorum accepts 81 species of Lepra.[6]
Lepra is a genus of lichen-forming fungi in the family Pertusariaceae. Although the genus was created in 1777, it was not regularly used until it was resurrected in 2016 following molecular phylogenetic analyses. It has more than 80 species, most of which were previously classified in genus Pertusaria.
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