The sacred groves in the mountains of Epirus in NW Greece have been established during the Ottoman period and
consist of locally adapted systems set apart from the surrounding intensively managed, anthropogenic landscape. We
inventoried eight sacred groves and compared them with nearby control (managed) forests. In total, 166 taxa of lichens
and 5 of lichenicolous fungi were recorded. The most common lichen species were Anaptychia ciliaris, Phlyctis
argena and Lecidella elaeochroma. Seven species are new for Greece: Calicium quercinum, Chaenotheca ferruginea,
Chaenotheca trichialis, Chaenothecopsis nana, Leptogium hibernicum, Parvoplaca nigroblastidiata and Rinodina
orculata. The sacred groves appeared not very different from the control forests; more pronounced differences were
observed between deciduous oak evergreen oak and pine forests. Localities characterized by deciduous oak forest
hosted the highest number of taxa belonging to the order Peltigerales, the most frequent were: Nephroma laevigatum,
Collema subflaccidum, Leptogium lichenoides and Lobaria pulmonaria, but also rare species such as Polychidium
muscicola, Koerberia biformis and Degelia atlantica were recorded.
