LICHALP

Puttea margaritella (Hulting) S. Stenroos & Huhtinen

Syn.: Fellhanera margaritella (Hulting) Hafellner, Lecidea margaritella Hulting

Lichenised.

Substrate: living mosses

Altitudinal range: from the montane belt (potential vegetation: deciduous forests dominated by Fagus sylvatica and closed coniferous forests with Picea abies) to the subalpine belt (potential vegetation: open, taiga-like forests dominated by Larix decidua and/or Pinus cembra and Rhododendron)

Note: a species with an inconspicuous thallus, minute, whitish apothecia with soon excluded margins and exciple composed of gelatinised radiating hyphae, asci with an amyloid tube structure, and ellipsoid, simple ascospores; on the leafy hepatic Ptilidium pulcherrimum, rarely spreading to adjacent wood or bark; widespread in Europe from the boreal to the temperate-montane zone; in the Alps so far only recorded from Austria and Switzerland, but likely to occur elsewhere in coniferous forests.