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Anaptychia is a genus of lichen-forming fungi in the family Physciaceae. Anaptychia species are foliose lichen (leafy) to fruticose lichen (bushy) lichens. They have brown, thin-walled spores with a single septum, and a upper .
Some species of Anaptychia were transferred to the genus Kurokawia, newly circumscribed in 2021.
Other advancements in the taxonomy of Anaptychia have clarified the classification within section Protoanaptychia, a group originally proposed by Josef Poelt, primarily found in arid and semi-arid regions of the Northern Hemisphere. This section includes species such as A. desertorum, A. elbursiana, A. mereschkowskii, and A. roemeri, which are morphologically distinct from those found in moist temperate to arctic climate regions. The nomenclature and species identification within this section, particularly concerning A. desertorum and A. mereschkowskii, is now better understood. Kulakov (2003) rectified a long-standing confusion by recognising that the type specimen of Anaptychia desertorum, previously thought to be , is actually . He reinstated the name A. mereschkowskii for the sorediate species formerly identified as A. desertorum. Urbanavichus (2008) further resolved the taxonomy by associating the type specimen of A. desertorum with a fertile species, historically referred to as A. ulothricoides, granting A. desertorum nomenclatural priority. This clarification is relevant to North American literature, where the orthographic variant A. ulotrichoides has been mistakenly applied to a different species that reproduces primarily through fragmentation. These taxonomic updates, while significant, have been underreported in North American literature, possibly due to language barriers, as some of the research was published in Russian.
The uppermost protective layer, or cortex, displays a patterned cellular arrangement of outward-facing, thick-walled hyphae. In contrast, the lower cortex can either be absent or display a similar arrangement, but it might sometimes appear less structured and not distinctly separate from the inner fleshy layer, known as the medulla.
Anaptychia bears reproductive structures known as apothecia, which are encircled by a thallus-derived boundary. Inside these apothecia, there are sac-like structures that typically contain eight spores. These spores resemble those of the Physconia type, are brown, and are partitioned once, measuring in the range of 25–52 micrometre in length and 13–24 μm in width. Another kind of reproductive structure, the pycnidia, appear on the thallus surface and are darkened and sunken. The pycnidia contain spore-like conidia that are rod-shaped to slightly cylindrical, with sizes ranging between 3.5–6 μm in length and up to 6.1 μm in width.
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