Nash, T.H., Ryan, B.D., Gries, C., Bungartz, F., (eds.) 2004. Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region. Vol 2.
Perithecia: sessile, dispersed, 0.2-0.3(0.35) mm wide, conical to semi-globose, simple, black, somewhat glistening; ostiole: punctiform, inconspicuous wall: typical of the genus; external involucrellum layer: 10-17 µm thick, carbonaceous, consisting of isodiametric, thick-walled cells with enlarged and rounded lumina and black walls; internal involucrellum layer: 30-50 µm thick, colorless to black, consisting of isodiametric, thin-walled cells with enlarged lumina, (5.5-)7-17(-18) µm in diam., wall pigmented or not; excipular layer: thinner, 8-15 µm thick, hyaline, composed of cells becoming laterally compressed, (7-)9-18(-20) x 2-3(-5) µm, with thin, colorless walls and enlarged lumina hamathecium: not well developed in the SARCOPYRENIA paraphyses: scarcely conspicuous, lax, sparsely branched and anastomosed asci: collapsed and not well developed in the old specimens studied, scarce, elongate claviform to subcylindrical, straight or moderately curved, (45-)50-62 x 7-9 µm, thin-walled, 8-spored ascospores: simple, elongate bacilliform, straight or nearly so, with rounded apices, not or scarcely broadened, vertically arranged in the asci, hyaline, (19-)23-34(-40) x 1.5-2.5 µm. Host: thallus of sterile crustose cyanolichen with Nostoc as the photobiont, on crumbling sandstone World and Sonoran distribution: known only from the type locality in southern California. Notes: Sarcopyrenia bacillosa is only reported from the type locality in southern California (Hasse 1898 a & b; 1913). It was originally described as Verrucaria bacillosa by Nylander (Hasse 1898 a), and later included in Hassea, a monospecific genus, described by Zahlbruckner (1902). By the size and form of the ascospores, it is similar to S. cylindrospora, a species also know from North America on saxicolous crustose lichens with a chlorococcoid photobiont (Harris 1995b). S. bacillosa differs from S. cylindrospora by having aseptate ascospores and growing on a terricolous cyanolichen.