TYPE. UNITED STATES. NEW HAMPSHIRE, Coos County, White Mts, 1839, E. Tuckerman s.n. (FH 00079544, holotype).
Description. Lichenized, tripartite fungus.
Thallus fruticose. Primary thallus rudimentary and disappearing. Pseudopodetia whitish, 2-4 cm tall by < 1 mm thick, solitary or loosely to densely aggregated, appearing ligneous, erect or ascending, subsimple and smooth below, becoming much branched and covered with phyllocladia above; phyllocladia grayish white to brownish, granular to lobate-squamulose, 0.3-0.7 or becoming swollen and up to 1.5 mm diam. Photobiont trebouxioid alga; cyanobiont Stigonema in cephalodia; cephalodia rare, olive to brownish. Ascomata biatorine apothecia, rare, 0.3-0.7 mm diam., lateral or sometimes terminal, rarely clustered; disk flat to slightly convex, brownish black to black; ascospores acicular, 3-septate, 22-40 x 2.5-4 μm.