LICHALP

Stereocaulon evolutum Graewe

Syn.: Stereocaulon spissum Nyl. ex Hue var. laxum Frey

Lichenised.

Substrate: acidic soil (mostly on siliceous substrata)

Altitudinal distribution: subalpine belt (potential vegetation: open, taiga-like forests dominated by Larix decidua and/or Pinus cembra and Rhododendron)

Note: a species of the S. paschale-group resembling S. saxatile, but pseudopodetia more rigid and completely glabrous, with digitate-squamulose bluish-grey phyllocladia, containing atranorin and lobaric acid, rarely fertile and then with diagnostic short-ellipsoid ascospores (to c. 30 µm long); widespread in Europe, but most common in the west, surprisingly with a few records from the Eastern Alps only (Austria).