The lichen family Ophioparmaceae contains three genera: Boreoplaca, Hypocenomyce and Ophioparma. The genus Hypocenomyce is reported here for the first time for China, being represented by the species Hypocenomyce scalaris which is distributed in south-western China. For the genus Ophioparma, one new species is described in this paper, namely Ophioparma pruinosa Li S. Wang & Y. Y. Zhang sp. nov., which is characterized by a pruinose thallus and the presence of usnic acid. Ophioparma araucariae is also reported as new for the Chinese lichen biota. Previous reports of O. lapponica in China are recognized as misidentifications of O. ventosa. Descriptions, keys and phylograms are provided for these species.

Living at high altitude carries risks, so settlement there can be thought marginal. Its success or failure ought to be dependent on the environment and the climate. But recent fieldwork in the French Alps shows that exploitation was not coincident with climatic conditions: Mesolithic people found the hunting good; in the climatic optimum of the Roman period the high altitudes were said to be uninhabitable and apparently were; while in the Little Ice Age of the fourteenth century and later, the high Alps were at their busiest. The author hypothesises that social control and perception, rather than climate, were the determinant factors.