Rarely fertile, this species can be easily overlooked in the field owing to its small size and sheltered habitat and its resemblance to similar, sterile crustose lichens such as M. micrococca, M. xanthonica and M. coppinsii. The bright green, brittle-crustose textured thallus of this species can be located most easily on plant debris and leaf litter below the canopy of gorse and heather on the drier slopes of heaths and moorlands where it tests C+ red, KC+ red often fleetingly. It is currently known only from Counties Tipperary (north), Wexford, Laois and Cavan.

Key characteristics

• Small bright green, minutely granular crust (C+red fleeting) on bark, lignum (in woodlands) and decaying leaf litter below gorse and heather (on dry heaths and moors)
• M. micrococca is C-, M. xanthonica has a yellower cast and is KC+ orange; M. coppinsii has neatly proportioned blue-grey soralia which are clearly visible and countable.

Original text submitted by Vince J. Giavarini