Someone typed hipojimnia. Which lichen did they mean?

What the ear did

The rendering keeps the rhythm of the name exactly and none of its letters past the h, which is what makes it such a good example of the problem. Hypo- and gymno- are both transliterations, so both look nothing like the sound they make: the first is said high and written hy, the second is said jim and written gym. Neither is guessable. What you can do instead is learn the two pieces, because they turn up everywhere in the names of lichens and mosses. Hypo- means under, as in hypodermic, and marks something about the lower surface. Gymnos means naked, as in gymnosperm, a plant whose seeds sit uncovered. Put together they describe exactly what separates this genus from its neighbours: a lower surface with no rhizines on it, black and bare.