Mastodia

Mastodia is a genus of lichen-forming fungi in the family Verrucariaceae. It has six species.

==Taxonomy== The genus was circumscribed in 1847 by Joseph Dalton Hooker and William Henry Harvey. The type species, Mastodia tessellata, is a bipolar (i.e., found in both the Arctic and Antarctica), coastal lichen. It forms a symbiotic association with the macroscopic genus Prasiola; this is the only known lichen symbiosis involving a foliose green alga. Studies suggest that throughout its geographic range, the lichen comprises two fungal species (the mycobionts) and three algal lineages (the photobionts) that associate.