Cora canari is a rare species of basidiolichen in the family Hygrophoraceae. It was formally described as a new species in 2016 by Freddy Nugra, Manuela Dal Forno, and Robert Lücking. The specific epithet canari refers to the Cañari people of pre-Incan Ecuador. The lichen is only known to occur at the type locality in the Morona-Santiago Province of Ecuador, where it grows as an epiphyte on tree trunks and branches. It forms small rosettes up to 5 cm across with emerald-green to blue-green that have wavy surfaces and thin, rolled-in grey margins.
Cora canari is a basidiolichen in the family Hygrophoraceae (order Agaricales). It was described in 2016 by Lizeth Nugra, Manuela Dal Forno, and Robert Lücking from material collected in the lower montane rain-forest of Morona-Santiago Province, Ecuador. The epithet commemorates the CañariâÂÂone of Ecuador's pre-Incan indigenous nations. ITS sequences place C. canari in a clade that also includes the Colombian species C. setosa and C. undulata and two Galápagos endemics, rather than the superficially similar terrestrial taxa C. hafecesweorthensis and C. imi.
The thallus of Cora canari is epiphytic and foliose, forming rosettes up to 5 cm across on bark. It comprises three to five semicircular , 1âÂÂ2 cm wide and 0.7âÂÂ1.5 cm long, that are unbranched or only sparsely branched and lack radial sutures. Fresh lobes are aeruginous- to emerald-green, becoming green-grey in the herbarium; the thin, rolled-in () margins are grey and . The upper surface is (wavy) when moist and undulate- (wavy and wrinkled) on drying, with no concentric colour bands. The lower face does not have a (it is) and exposes a white-grey, felty-arachnoid medulla.
In section the thallus is 200âÂÂ250 micrometres (üm) thick. A diffusely viaduct-shaped upper cortex, 20âÂÂ30 üm deep, overlies a 30âÂÂ70 üm band of hyphae. The is 40âÂÂ70 üm thick and aeruginous throughout; the medulla is 40âÂÂ70 üm, hydrophobic, and lacks clamp connections or hyphae. No hymenophore has been observed, and thin-layer chromatography has detected no secondary metabolites.
Cora canari is known only from its type locality at 1,581 m elevation near the Sopladora Hydroelectric Project, Morona-Santiago Province, Ecuador. It inhabits moist lower montane rain-forest, growing epiphytically on trunks and branches among bryophyte mats and other lichens, including Coccocarpia species. The lichen's undulate, hydrophobic lobes may facilitate rapid drainage and gas exchange in the consistently humid conditions of this Andean cloud forest.