LICHALP

Fuscidea pusilla Tønsberg

Lichenised.

Substrate: bark

Altitudinal range: from the montane belt (potential vegetation: deciduous forests dominated by Fagus sylvatica and closed coniferous forests with Picea abies) to the subalpine belt (potential vegetation: open, taiga-like forests dominated by Larix decidua and/or Pinus cembra and Rhododendron)

Note: a species with a minute, greenish, areolate thallus being bluish-white under UV-light and reacting C-, surrounded by a brown prothallus, often occurring in colonies, the more central areolae breaking up apically to form green soralia (the species is only known in the sterile state); on bark of broad-leaved trees in various forest types, from the lowlands to the montane belt; widespread in the Holarctic region, with several scattered records from the Alps, where it was certainly undercollected.