Reassessment of some lichen species described by Josiah Lowe, and notes on some other North American lecideoid lichens BRIAN J. COPPINS Royal Botanic Garden, Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR, U.K. e-mail: b.coppins@rbge.org.uk ALAN M. FRYDAY Herbarium, Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1312, U.S.A. e-mail: fryday@msu.edu ABSTRACT. The new saxicolous species introduced by Josiah Lowe from his collections from the Adirondack Mountains, New York are reassessed. Lecidea albonigra J. Lowe, L. columnata J. Lowe, L. furva J. Lowe, L. humilis J. Lowe, L. marciensis J. Lowe, L. rugosa J. Lowe, L. soredifera J. Lowe, L. suberratica J. Lowe, and L. subramosa J. Lowe are reduced to synonymy with other, previously described taxa and must be removed from the North American lichen checklist. Lecidea nemoralis J. Lowe is a member of the Lecidea hypnorum group closely allied to L. ahlesii (Ko¨rb.) Nyl., and is here treated as L. ahlesii var. nemoralis. The status of some other lecideoid lichens in North America is also reassessed and L. marylandensis H. Magn. is shown to be a synonym of Miriquidica leucophaea (Rabenh.) Hertel & Rambold, Lecidea planetica Tuck. ex Willey to be a synonym of Micarea erratica, and the single North American collection of Micarea melanabola is shown to be a misidentification of Lecidea tugidula Fr. The new combination Porpidia subsimplex (H. Magn.) Fryday is made and shown to be an earlier name for P. tahawasiana Gowan. Lecidella subviridis Tønsberg, Toninia squalescens (Nyl.) Th. Fr., and the lichenicolous fungus Endococcus verrucosporus Alstrup are reported for the first time from North America, and Micarea elachista (Ko¨rb.) Coppins & R. Sant. is confirmed as occurring in North America. The author citations of four species described by Willey in the Appendix of Tuckerman’s Synopsis of North American Lichens (Biatora furvonigrans, B. meadii, Lecidea micytho, and L. planetica) are corrected to Tuck. ex Willey. KEYWORDS. Lecidea, Micarea, Porpidia, Adirondack Mountains, New York. ^ ^ ^ Josiah Lincoln Lowe (1905–1997) was a mycologist specializing in the taxonomy of polypores and quite how he came to study ‘‘The genus Lecidea in the Adirondack Mountains of New York’’ for his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Michigan is something of a mystery. Lowe had shown little previous interest in the group and subsequent to publishing his thesis (Lowe 1939), published little else on lichens (Ginns & Worrall 2003). Neither of his major professors, initially C. H. Kauffman and later E. B. Mains, were THE BRYOLOGIST 109(1), pp. 9–17 Copyright Ó2005 by the American Bryological and Lichenological Society, Inc. 0007-2745/$0.95/0