Description: This is an epiphytic crustose lichen of mossy mildly basic-barked trees including oak, in long-established or old-growth woodlands or parklands. The first sign of its presence is the scurfy grey-brown thallus (sometimes hard to see against the bark of the tree) spreading onto mat-forming mosses. The red-brown to black wine-gum-shaped discs with one-septate ellipsoid spores (10–15 x 5–7µm) in eight-spored asci are usually sparingly produced. Throughout Ireland, except for the midland counties.

Key Identification Features:

• Thallus dark grey to brown, scurfy crustose, spreading from bark to bryophytes; discs like tiny red-brown wine gums
• Spores one-septate; old established woodland/parkland.

Original text submitted by Vince J. Giavarini

Distribution Map from NBN: Catinaria atropurpurea at National Biodiversity Network mapping facility, data for UK.

iNaturalist: Catinaria atropurpurea at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.