LICHALP

Lecidea steineri Hertel

Lichenised.

Substrate: siliceous rocks

Altitudinal range: from the subalpine belt (potential vegetation: open, taiga-like forests dominated by Larix decidua and/or Pinus cembra and Rhododendron) to the alpine belt (potential vegetation: treeless Alpine grasslands and tundras, to the lower limit of perennial snow and the equilibrium line of glaciers)

Note: a species of the L. auriculata-group recalling L. promiscens, but with an unpigmented to pale emerald hypothecium, and a cryptothalline thallus with a distinctly amyloid medulla, but lacking secondary compounds; on siliceous rocks, with optimum in the alpine belt; in the study area so far known with certainty only from the Western Alps (France).