A cyanolichen with a brown, finely foliose thallus, carrying isidious outgrows on its margins. The species resembles Fuscopannaria praetermissa by its appearance and in the past, the two lichens were often mistaken. However, Massalongia carnosa is rather acidophilous and has a different ecology. Jørgensen (1978) published a synoptic table of morphological differences between the two taxa.
Thalli of M. carnosa are usually found in permanently humid habitats, most often semi-immersed in mosses on acidic boulders covered by a humus layer (such as boulders in wider parts of upper watercourses) and on mossy rocks with water trickling through. Exceptionally, it may occur also at mossy tree bases. It is an arctic to boreal-montane lichen, occurring only in the northern hemisphere (Jørgensen et al. 2019). In the Czech Republic, this sensible species used to be reported mostly from mountains in Sudetenland and once from the valley of the Vydra river in the Šumava Mts by J. Suza in 1936, which is also its last reported occurrence. Currently, the species is probably extinct in the country.
Literature: Jørgensen P. M. (1978): The lichen family Pannariaceae in Europe. – Opera Botanica 45: 1–124. Jørgensen P. M., Andersen H. L. & Elvebakk A. (2019): The genus Massalongia (lichenised ascomycetae) in the Southern Hemisphere. – MycoKeys 60: 125–140. Suza J. (1936): Doplňky k rozšíření lišejníků v Čechách. Část III. – Časopis Národního musea 110: 107–113.
taxonomic classification:Ascomycota → Lecanoromycetes → Peltigerales → Massalongiaceae → Massalongia
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