Three species of lichenicolous Opegrapha s. lat. are newly described, all apparently host-specific at genus level. Opegrapha arthoniicola Coppins & S. Y. Kondr. is described from western Britain and Ireland, where it grows on the thallus of Arthonia radiata on Corylus bark; it has small clustered ascomata, asci that are usually 6-spored and rather small ascospores (10.5–)12.5–14.5 μm in length. Opegrapha sawyeriana Coppins occurs on the thallus of Coniocarpon cinnabarinum, also on Corylus bark, from oceanic western parts of Scotland, Ireland and southern England; in comparison to O. arthoniicola it has smaller, often scattered ascomata with a pigmented basal layer, 8-spored asci and slightly larger ascospores 13–14.5(–16) μm in length. Opegrapha hochstetteri Coppins has been found on thalli of Verrucaria hochstetteri and V. muralis on calcareous rocks and stonework in southern England and Luxembourg; collections were formerly identified as Opegrapha rupestris Pers. but it differs from this species by narrower ascomata with a persistent narrow slit, normally 6- rather than 8-spored asci and ascospores with pigmentation in the spore wall rather than the perispore. Lifted from synonymy is Opegrapha opaca Nyl., which inhabits the thallus of Verrucaria nigrescens and V. viridula on calcareous rocks and stonework, and is so far recorded from southern England, Luxembourg, France, northern Spain and Israel. The hosts of the European species of lichenicolous Opegrapha on Verrucaria s. lat. on calcareous rocks (O. hochstetteri, O. opaca and O. rupestris) belong to different phylogenetic lineages within the Verrucariaceae. A key is also provided to the lichenicolous species of Opegraphaceae currently known from Great Britain and Ireland.

This paper is devoted to determine the connectedness of the branch loci of the moduli space of non-orientable unbordered Klein surfaces. We obtain a result similar to Nielsen's in order to determine topological conjugacy of automorphisms of prime order on such surfaces. Using this result we prove that the branch locus is connected for surfaces of topological genus 4 and 5.

Pronectria rolfiana Etayo sp. nov. is described on Solorina sp. from Austria and Germany. The new species has been confused with Xenonectriella lutescens, a species hitherto reported from one locality in Bavaria. Scutula pseudocyphellariae Etayo & Triebel is described on Pseudocyphellaria berberina and P. flavicans from southern Chile and Unguiculariopsis fasciculata Etayo on Ramalina stenospora from Florida. The new combination Clypeococcum psoromatis (A. Massal.) Etayo comb. nov. is introduced for the common Mediterranean lichenicolous fungus hitherto named Clypeococcum epicrassum (H. Olivier) Nav.-Ros. & Cl. Roux.

Every finite group G acts as an automorphism group of some non-orientable Klein surfaces without boundary. The minimal genus of these surfaces is called the symmetric cross-cap number and denoted by . This number is related to other parameters defined on surfaces as the symmetric genus and the strong symmetric genus.

The systematic study of the symmetric cross-cap number was begun by C. L. May, who also calculated it for certain finite groups. Here we obtain the symmetric cross-cap number for the groups Cm × Dn. As an application of this result, we obtain arithmetic sequences of integers which are the symmetric cross-cap number of some group. Finally, we recall the several different genera of the groups Cm × Dn.

Opegrapha invadens Etayo on Pannaria farinosa and Plectocarpon usneaustralis Etayo on corticolous Usnea sp. are described as new from southern Chile.

The use of artisan-produced lamb rennet pastes, but not any of the other commercial animal rennets, imparts a characteristic flavour to the cheese, so most Mediterranean ewes' milk cheeses are coagulated with this kind of rennet paste. In contrast to the advantages of using lamb or kid rennet pastes from the sensory point of view, questions are still raised as to their hygienic quality. The goal was to examine the microbiological and enzymic quality of lamb rennet pastes prepared by cheese manufacturers for their own use, and evaluate the hygienic quality of raw sheeps' milk cheeses made with them, using Idiazabal cheese as a model. Lamb rennet pastes prepared by artisan cheese makers from the Basque region of Spain (27), and Italy (8) were evaluated. For cheese making experiments 5 different lamb rennet pastes were selected among the 27 samples from the Basque Country region of Spain. Microbiological analyses were carried out on samples from rennet pastes, rennet extracts, milks and cheeses during ripening. Enzymic activities studied in rennet paste were: total coagulating strength and lipase. Analysis of variance and Student's t-tests was performed. The results show that the artisan-produced rennet pastes contain high levels of a variety of microorganisms. After 60 ripening days, which is the minimum ripening period required for Idiazabal cheese prior to its commercialization, no Eschericia coli, Clostridium, Salmonella spp. or Listeria monocytogenes were detected, and levels for the rest of the microorganisms were below the limits of the European legislative standards for cheese manufactured with raw milk. We can conclude that the use of artisan-produced lamb rennet pastes of questionable hygienic quality for the manufacture of raw milk hard cheeses yields products of good hygienic quality.

Porina fortunata P. M. McCarthy & Etayo sp. nov. (Trichotheliaceae) is described from shaded basalt in Gomera, Canary Islands. It is characterized by a richly rimose to areolate thallus, small, prominent and outwardly blackish perithecia that are internally orange-brown and narrow and elongate, 3(-7)-septate ascospores.

The generic name Paralethariicola gen. nov. is introduced for a lichenicolous fungus very similar to Lethariicola, but differing by the presence of excipular hairs, asci with a hemiamyloid apical ring and a more flattened apex, curved or slightly helicoid ascospores with ± pointed ends, and thicker paraphyses. The single species, Paralethariicola aspiciliae sp. nov., is lichenicolous on Aspicilia, and is known from continental Spain and Sardinia.

Two new species of lichens are described from the Iberian Peninsula. Halecania giraltiae is the first sorediate saxicolous species known in the genus and has been collected growing on lichens and sometimes directly on rock in localities from northern Portugal to central Spain. Catillaria fungoides, a sorediate, corticolous representative of the C. nigroclavata group, is known from southern Portugal and northern Spain.

Gyalidea cylindrical is described as new, living on pleurocarpic epiphytic mosses in shaded situations.Gyalidea phyllophila is recorded for the first time in Europe. Both of them have been collected in the French Atlantic Pyrénées.

The lichen Lecanora schistina (Nyl.) Arnold has two kinds of conidia: filiform microconidia and obpyriform macroconidia. Both appear mixed in the same conidioma, the former being much more abundant. Sometimes these conidiomata contain a third type of conidia (microconidia) belonging most probably to a lichenicolous coelomycete living in the conidiomata of the lichen.

The little known Porina schizospora Vainio is transferred to the genus Strigula as Strigula mediterranea Etayo nom. nov. Strigula mediterranea differs from S. taylorii only in its conidia and its Mediterranean distribution.

Phaeographina buxi is described from Buxus sempervirens to the south of the Pyrenees. It lives in canyons and geomorphologically similar habitats with a rich assemblage of epiphyllous lichens. The tropical genus Phaeographina is reported for the first time on the European continent.

Beardon [1] gave a procedure for constructing a polygon with prescribed angles. For each ordered set of angles Beardon's polygon is unique up to congruence. The polygon obtained this way has an inscribed circle. It is possible to obtain by means of these polygons a fundamental region for a non-Euclidean crystallographic (NEC) group with a given signature having equal angles in each of the cycles: see [5]. In [5] the minimal number of sides of a convex fundamental region of an NEC group is calculated, and regions are explicitly obtained achieving the bound.

A problem of special interest in the study of automorphism groups of surfaces are the bounds of the orders of the groups as a function of the genus of the surface.

May has proved that a Klein surface with boundary of algebraic genus p has at most 12(p–1) automorphisms [9].

In this paper we study the highest possible prime order for a group of automorphisms of a Klein surface. This problem was solved for Riemann surfaces by Moore in [10]. We shall use his results for studying the Klein surfaces that are not Riemann surfaces. The more general result that we obtain is the following: if X is a Klein surface of algebraic genus p, and G is a group of automorphisms of X, of prime order n, then n ≤ p + 1.