LICHALP

Verrucaria dinarica Zahlbr.

Lichenised.

Substrate: calciferous rocks

Altitudinal range: from the montane belt (potential vegetation: deciduous forests dominated by Fagus sylvatica and closed coniferous forests with Picea abies) 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: closely related to V. caerulea, but with a mainly endolithic, uncracked, grey thallus, almost entirely immersed perithecia (to c. 0.3 mm in diam.) with a wall carbonised throughout and without involucrellum, and oblong to ellipsoid ascospores (to c. 15 µm long); on limestone, known from scattered records in Southern Europe, including the Alps, but rare.