Caloplaca is a lichen genus[1] comprising a number of distinct species. Members of the genus are commonly calledfiredot lichen,[2]: 235 jewel lichen.[2]: 235 gold lichens, "orange lichens",[3][4] but they are not always orange, as in the case of C. albovariegata.[5] The distribution of this lichen genus is worldwide, extending from Antarctica[6] to the high Arctic.[7] It includes a portion of northern North America and the Russian High Arctic. There are about thirty species of Caloplaca in the flora of the British Isles.[8]
Until relatively recently, Caloplaca was one of the largest genera of lichen-forming fungi, with more than 500 species.[11] Since the advent of molecular phylogenetics, the formerly polyphyletic genus has been split into more than 30 smaller, monophyletic genera after many publications by Ukrainian lichenologist Sergey Kondratyuk and colleagues.[12][13][14][15]
^Brodo, Irwin M.; Sharnoff, Sylvia Duran; Sharnoff, Stephen; Laurie-Bourque, Susan (2001). Lichens of North America (1st ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-300-08249-4.
^ abField Guide to California Lichens, Stephen Sharnoff, Yale University Press, 2014, ISBN978-0-300-19500-2
^Kirk, Paul M.; Cannon, Paul F.; Minter, David W.; Stalpers, Joost A., eds. (2008). Dictionary of the Fungi. Vol. 10. CAB International. p. 111. ISBN978-1-84593-933-5.
^Kondratyuk, S.Y.; Jeong, M.-H.; Yu, N.-N.; Kärnefelt, I.; Thell, A.; Elix, J.A.; Kim, J.; Kondratiuk, A.S.; Hur, J.-S. (2014). "A revised taxonomy for the subfamily Caloplacoideae (Teloschistaceae, Ascomycota) based on molecular phylogeny". Acta Botanica Hungarica. 56 (1–2): 93–123. doi:10.1556/abot.56.2014.1-2.10.