Infraspecific variation of some brown Parmeliae (in Poland) – a comparison of ITS rDNA and non-molecular characters Katarzyna Szczepańska 1 , Beata Guzow-Krzemińska 2 , Jacek Urbaniak 1 1 Department of Botany and Plant Ecology, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, pl. Grun- waldzki 24a, PL-50-363 Wrocław, Poland 2 Department of Plant Taxonomy and Nature Conservation, Fac- ulty of Biology, University of Gdańsk, Wita Stwosza 59, PL-80-308 Gdańsk, Poland Corresponding author: Katarzyna Szczepańska (katarzyna.szczepanska@upwr.edu.pl) Academic editor: Pradeep Divakar  |  Received 23 June 2021  |  Accepted 20 October 2021  |  Published 22 Decemeber 2021 Citation: Szczepańska K, Guzow-Krzemińska B, Urbaniak J (2021) Infraspecifc variation of some brown Parmeliae (in Poland) – a comparison of ITS rDNA and non-molecular characters. MycoKeys 85: 127–160. https://doi.org/10.3897/ mycokeys.85.70552 Abstract Infraspecifc variation of the ITS rDNA region of some brown Parmeliae occurring in Poland is studied and compared with non-molecular characters. Haplotype networks are used to illustrate the variability within the species. Both newly-produced sequences from Central Europe and from all over the world, downloaded from the GenBank, are used. Te number of haplotypes found for each taxon ranged from fve in Melanelia stygia to 12 in Melane- lia hepatizon and Montanelia disjuncta; however, their numbers correlate with the number of specimens tested. New haplotypes for Melanelia agnata, M. hepatizon and Cetraria commixta are found. Based on our 169-sample dataset, we could not infer any geographical correlation, either locally or world-wide. Many of the analysed haplotypes were widely distributed and the same haplotype was often shared between temperate and polar populations. A comparison of molecular, morphological, anatomical and chemical characters also shows no correlation. Keywords Cryptic species, haplotype, lichenised fungi, Parmeliaceae, phylogeny, taxonomy MycoKeys 85: 127–160 (2021) doi: 10.3897/mycokeys.85.70552 https://mycokeys.pensoft.net Copyright Katarzyna Szczepańska et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. RESEARCH ARTICLE A peer-reviewed open-access journal Launched to accelerate biodiversity research