Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History)

LICHEN GENUS MICAREA IN EUROPE 195
With the combination of blackish thallus and black, convex to ± globose apothecia, M.
turfosa is easily confused in the field with peat inhabiting forms of M. melaena, but the latter
differs microscopically in having dark purple and/or green pigments in the hypothecium and
thinner paraphyses. M. botryoides has similar apothecial pigmentation to M. turfosa, but its
hypothecium is darker with nearly all the hyphae densely coated with pigment; in addition, M.
botryoides has less numerous and (when hyaline) thinner paraphyses, a shallower hymenium,
smaller spores, and its apothecia are always accompanied by numerous, stalked, black pycnidia.
M. melaenida is unlikely to be mistaken for M. turfosa because of its whitish thallus and habitat
of fine-grained, mineral soils; it can be further distinguished by its purple-brown epithecium,
excipulum, and (usually) upper hypothecium. The little known M. osloensis differs from M.
turfosa in several features but is most easily distinguished by its much smaller, non-septate
spores.
Habitat and distribution: M. turfosa seems to have an arctic-alpine distribution. In Britain it is
known from summits in the Cairngorm, Grampian, and Breadalbane mountains of Scotland,
where it grows on exposed turf (mostly over dead bryophytes) at altitudes of about 860-1245 m.
In the Sudeten and Carpathian mountains of Czechoslovakia it is reported at altitudes of 1400 m
and 1870 m respectively. It seems to be able to occur at lower altitudes in Sphagnum-bogs in
Scandinavia, but no altitude data is given with any of the specimens seen. I have not seen any
material from the Alps but it is likely to occur there.
On the Cairngorm plateau M. turfosa occurs amongst Juncus trifidus. Associated lichens on
the British gatherings include Cladonia spp., Lecidea caesioatra, and Lepraria neglecta.
Map 27 Micarea turfosa • 1950 onwards O Before 1950