The term also symbolically encompasses the expansive swamps and pocosins that envelop the Alligator River drainage and take up considerable areas of Dare, Hyde, Tyrrell, and nearby Currituck counties.

[2] Fissurina alligatorensis is a bark-dwelling lichen with a thin, smooth, ecorticate (i.e., lacking a cortex) thallus that ranges in colour from green-grey to grey.

The lichen seems absent from the coastal regions of Georgia, suggesting a distribution pattern similar to the Atlantic white cedar or willow oak.

F. illiterata typically does not grow on soft-barked substrates and differs from F. alligatorensis with its smaller, shorter lirellae and 4-celled ascospores that do not react to iodine (I−).

Nonetheless, it differs from F. alligatorensis in its larger lirellae, usually with an open, white pruinose disc, and large muriform ascospores that also do not react to iodine (I−).

[2] Other species of Fissurina, such as F. egena and F. incrustans, share the combination of muriform, iodine-reactive (I+) violet ascospores, fissurine lirellae, and absence of secondary compounds.

[2] Although Fissurina alligatorensis is widespread within its preferred habitats, it appears to be uncommon or infrequent in most areas, raising potential conservation concerns.