LICHALP

Lecidea polytrichinella Hertel, Obermayer & Poelt

Lichenised.

Substrate: living mosses

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 tiny species of unclear relationships, with a thallus of minute, whitish areoles, small hemispherical, immarginate, brown to blackish apothecia, asci recalling those of Biatora, and small ascospores; encrusting leaflets of moribund Polytrichum, often together with Lecanora leptacinella; overall distribution arctic to temperate-alpine; widespread in the Alps but rarely collected.