LICHALP

Protoblastenia szaferi J. Nowak

Lichenised.

Substrate: calciferous 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: this is the only species in the genus with persistently flat, orange apothecia basally immersed in shallow pits of the calcareous rock; on N-exposed, steep rock faces, from the treeline ecotone to the alpine belt; only known from the Tatra mountains and the Alps, and there so far only recorded from the Eastern Alps (Austria, Germany), but likely to have been overlooked elsewhere.