LICHALP

Protothelenella polytrichi Döbbeler & H. Mayrhofer

Non- or doubtfully lichenised.

Substrate: living mosses

Altitudinal distribution: alpine belt (potential vegetation: treeless Alpine grasslands and tundras, to the lower limit of perennial snow and the equilibrium line of glaciers)

Note: an apparently non-lichenised (contact to algals cells not observed so far), muscicolous species with minute, ovoid or pear-shaped perithecia (less than 300 µm in diam.), and narrowly ellipsoid, phragmospored ascospores with usually 3 transversal septa; on leaflets of Polytrichastrum sexangulare, easily overlooked when on the upper side of the dry moss with enrolled leaflets; overall distribution arctic-alpine, but apparently rare, with some scattered records from the Alps.