Recent years have witnessed major taxonomic rearrangements within the former family Lobariaceae, now included in Peltigeraceae as subfamily Lobarioideae. Essentially, the three long-established genera (i.e., Lobaria, Pseudocyphellaria and Sticta), which were hinged on straightforward morphological features (i.e., the presence/absence of cyphellae or pseudocyphellae), were fragmented into multiple genera owing their polyphyly. Here, we introduce the new genus Emmanuelia, in honor of Emmanuël Sérusiaux, for his extensive contributions to advancing our understanding of the diversification of the Peltigerales. Emmanuelia is morphologically similar to the lobarioid genus Ricasolia but differs by its apothecia, rimmed by overarching margins, with the parathecium and the amphithecium apically separated, and consistently narrower and longer, acicular ascospores. Molecular phylogenetic analyses using DNA nucleotide sequences of the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) and the small subunit of the mitochondrial ribosomal DNA (mtSSU) showed that Emmanuelia belongs to the Lobaria s. lat. clade and forms a monophyletic group sister to the lineage consisting of Dendriscosticta, Lobariella, and Yoshimuriella. Therefore, a new genus is erected to accommodate a group of lobarioid lichens, which cannot be placed in any of the available generic names. Emmanuelia, currently comprising twelve species, is mostly restricted to the Neotropics and the southeastern United States, and most of its representatives occur in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.
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