Description: Look for this lichen between low-growing ericaceous shrubs and over the mossy plant debris of acid rocks and boulders, where the small, spherical, blue-grey areoles cling tightly together to form a clumpy crust that tests C+ red, Pd+ red. The tiny areoles frequently dissolve to form patches of soredia. In Ireland, the species is not uncommon in upland areas with siliceous rock.

Key Identification Features:

• Thallus: an amalgamation of scores of small blue-grey globose areoles forming a coarse granular crust reacting C+ red, Pd+ red
• On acid soils over rocks, often growing in crevices between stones and plant debris.

Original text submitted by Vince J. Giavarini

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

iNaturalist: Micarea leprosula at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.