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7. Lirellae grouped in stromatic tissue . Sarcographina 
Lirellae single . Phaeographina 
8. Lirellae grouped in stromatic tissue . Medusulina 
Lirellae single . 9 
9. Ascospores 1-8 per ascus; paraphyses simple . Graphina 
Ascospores 1 per ascus; paraphyses branched. Cyclographina 
Apart from Glyphis (Acharius 1814), Snrcographa (Fee 1824) and Cyclographina (Awasthi 
& Joshi 1979), the remaining genera were described by Muller: Graphina (1880), 
Phaeograpliis (1882a: 336), Phaeographina (1882a: 398), Sarcographina (1887b), 
Diplogramma (1891b) and Medusulina (1894). 
The genera Phaeograpliis and Phaeographina were based on ascospore colour and 
structure only and were not universally accepted. Vainio, in his account of the lichen 
flora of Brazil (Vainio 1890), relegated them to subgenera in the genus Graphis and this 
arrangement was followed in his account of the Philippine Graphidaceae (1920). Later, 
however, botanists dealing with the Graphidaceae from the United States (Fink 1935), 
Brazil (Redinger 1933, 1935), Mexico (Wirth & Hale 1963), New Zealand (Hayward 
1977), Dominica (Wirth & Hale 1978), the United Kingdom (Purvis et al. 1992) and 
Australia (Rogers & Hafellner 1992) have accepted Muller's concept of the genera 
which has also been retained in the latest edition of the Dictionary of the Fungi 
(Hawksworth et al. 1995). A detailed description of each of the two genera is given by 
Rogers (1981). 
Wirth and Hale (1978) discussed generic separation in the Graphidaceae and gave 
examples of borderline species which could be placed in either of two genera, e.g. 
Graphis or Graphina. They indicated the disadvantages of rejecting the spore-based 
genera which would, in their view, leave only two choices, viz: the creation of many 
more smaller genera with more closely related species, or the reduction of all the 
spore-based genera back into the genus Graphis, which contains over 1000 species. In 
the light of these difficulties they accepted, faute de mieux, the spore-based genera on 
the grounds of practicality. 
The family Graphidaceae is predominantly tropical to subtropical with relatively 
fewer species found in temperate regions. For example only four Phaeograpliis species 
(and no Phaeographina species) are reported from Great Britain (Purvis 1992) in contrast 
to a total of 54 Phaeograpliis and Phaeographina taxa reported from Brazil (Redinger 
1933) and 30 (including several unnamed species) from Australia. 
The lirellae in Phaeograpliis and Phaeographina are often large and conspicuous but may 
be immersed and inconspicuous. Ascospores range from c. 20 pm long and 4-locular 
to c. 200 pm long and densely muriform. Lichen compounds are often absent but 
species may contain norstictic or stictic acids (common in tire genera Graphis and 
Graphina) and recently nomotatic, hypoprotocetraric, echinocarpic and hypostictic 
acids were found in species of Phaeograpliis and Phaeographina from Australia and 
elsewhere (Archer & Elix 1999). 
As a number of new species and new reports remain to be published, a fuller 
treatment, with keys, is not provided here. 
