Polycauliona candelaria is a species of corticolous (bark-dwelling) lichen in the family Teloschistaceae.

[2] It was one of the first lichens formally described by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in his 1753 work Species Plantarum.

Since then, the taxon has acquired a long and extensive synonymy.

[1] It was finally transferred to the genus Polycauliona by Ulf Arup and colleagues in 2013, as part of a molecular phylogenetics-based restructuring of the family Teloschistaceae.

[3] In North America, one vernacular name is shrubby sunburst lichen.