LICHALP

Micarea cyanescens Poelt & Döbbeler

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 and minute apothecia which are whitish when dry, translucent and gelatinous when moist, reacting intensely blue with iodine under the dissecting microscope, with narrowly ellipsoid, one-septate ascospores; on moribund mats of Campylium halleri overgrowing calcareous rocks; rare, but perhaps overlooked; known from a few localities from the montane to the subalpine belt in the Eastern Alps.