Oropogon [SEP] parent taxon
Oropogon
Oropogon is a genus of lichenised ascomycetes in the large family Parmeliaceae. It is a genus of roughly 40 currently accepted species. It was previously included in the family Alectoriaceae, but this group has since been subsumed into the Parmeliaceae.
All members of the genus have a fruticose growth form. The most obvious synapomorphic character which separates "Oropogon" from the rest of the family is the large brown, muriform, ascospores which occur singly in each ascus.
Taxon in disguise
In bacteriology, a taxon in disguise is a species, genus or higher unit of biological classification whose evolutionary history reveals has evolved from another unit of similar or lower rank, making the parent unit paraphyletic. This happens when rapid evolution makes a new species appear radically different from the ancestral group, so that it is not (initially) recognised as belonging to the parent phylogenetic group, leaving the latter an evolutionary grade.
While the term is from bacteriology, parallel examples are found throughout the tree of