Description: Known from Counties Armagh and Galway (west), this miniature rarity is attracted to silica-rich rocks in open country where, at first, it appears to key out to M. lutulata, a shade-loving lichen (described elsewhere). In M. subconfusa the crustose thallus is not scurvy or granular but distinctly cracked into smoothly rounded islands (areoles), increasingly so as the thallus ages. Young thalli have a non-granular, continuous thallus. This is a species that has more in common with Micarea species that associate closely with cyanobacteria, for in M. subconfusa, attention to the areoles reveals clusters of Stigonema and, occasionally, Gloeocapsa.

Key Identification Features:

• On siliceous (dry sandstone) rocks, rare; the tiny areoles often with clusters of cyanobacteria in between
• The black discs have zero- to one-septate spores.

Original text submitted by Vince J. Giavarini

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

iNaturalist: Micarea subconfusa at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.