LICHALP

Toniniopsis obscura Frey

Lichenised.

Substrate: calciferous soil

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 peculiar, inconspicuous lichen somewhat recalling a Placynthiella-species, with a blackish-brown, minutely granulose thallus, small, brownish-black apothecia, and bacilliform, finally 3-septate ascospores (to c. 25 µm long); on plant debris and decaying bryophytes over dolomite and calcareous rocks, from the subalpine to the lower alpine belt; known from a few localities in the Alps, but easily overlooked, and perhaps more widespread.