Gowardia is a genus of medium-sized, greyish hair lichens in the family Parmeliaceae. It is a circumpolar genus, mainly restricted to arctic-alpine habitats in northern Canada, Europe, and Russia.
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Gowardia is a genus of medium-sized, greyish hair lichens in the family Parmeliaceae. It is a circumpolar genus, mainly restricted to arctic-alpine habitats in northern Canada, Europe, and Russia.
==Taxonomy and naming== Gowardia was previously included within the genus Alectoria, but is now differentiated from this genus on the basis of its chemistry and colour, as well as by molecular phylogenetics. Gowardia was named after Trevor Goward, a lichenologist in British Columbia, Canada, in recognition of his "remarkable and ongoing work on North American lichens". This genus currently contains three species, Gowardia arctica, Gowardia nigricans, and Gowardia zebrina, the last of which was described in 2020. Examination of North American herbarium specimens filed under A. nigricans suggests that there are several additional species of Gowardia that have yet to be described. The species G. nigricans was previously called Alectoria nigricans (Ach.) Nyl., while G. arctica was not differentiated as a species until the creation of this genus.
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