The Italian lichenologist
Antonio Jatta erected
Lecaniella in 1889 to separate a small set of lecanioid
crusts that he judged misplaced between
Biatora and
Lecania. In his Latin he emphasised two simple points a field worker could recognise: the
apothecia are plainly (with a rim formed by the thallus) and the spores are consistently small, broadened ("dilated"), and never the four-celled type then expected in
Lecania. On that basis he instituted the new genus with three species, treating
L. cyrtella,
L. sambucina, and
L. rabenhorstii as its core members. These three species are now classified in
Lecania.
Lecaniella was resurrected by
Sergey Kondratyuk and co-authors (2019) on the basis of a combined three-locus
molecular phylogeny (nrITS, mtSSU, rpb2) of
Ramalinaceae. Their analyses showed that
Lecania sensu lato is not
monophyletic and that a distinct
Lecaniella lineage sits within the
Lecania s.l.
clade. In the tree
Lecaniella forms its own branch separate from
Lecania s.str., with strong support for two internal
species groups.
Josef Hafellner's earlier typification of
Lecaniella cyrtella as the genus
type is noted in the same treatment. The authors recognise two well-supported clusters: an
L. erysibe group (including
L. erysibe,
L. belgica,
L. sylvestris,
L. hutchinsiae,
L. cyrtella) and an
L. dubitans group (including
L. dubitans,
L. naegelii,
L. cyrtellina,
L. sambucina,
L. proteiformis,
L. prasinoides). To stabilise usage they made
new combinations for several of these names in
Lecaniella and concluded that
Lecaniella should be retained for the
L. erysibe group and, provisionally, expanded to include the
L. dubitans group until more data are available. The paper also confirms that some names Jatta originally placed in
Lecaniella (e.g.,
L. cyrtella,
L. proteiformis,
L. sambucina) fit the resurrected concept. Some relationships remain unresolved. In
mtSSU trees,
L. naegelii and
L. tenera (together with
Biatora vezdana) form a distinct branch that might warrant segregation, but the authors defer any split pending fuller sampling (noting gaps for mtSSU or rpb2 in several taxa). They also show that the former "
Lecania chlorotiza group" belongs in a separate Atlantic-bark lineage they name
Vandenboomia, outside
Lecaniella. To avoid confusion with a later-established algal fossil genus of the same name, Cookson and Eisenack (1962) introduced a non-lichen "Lecaniella" for discoidal
palynomorphs of uncertain affinity, diagnosed as a one-layered, saucer-shaped shell with various external ornament. Subsequent work showed these forms are halves of dehiscent
zygospores of freshwater
Zygnemataceae (e.g.,
Spirogyra), recorded from
Middle Triassic strata through to
Recent deposits. Because Jatta's 1889 lichen genus is the
senior homonym, Ravn and Zippi (2024) replaced the algal fossil name with
Zygnematiella, leaving the lichen genus
Lecaniella unaffected. ==Species==