Description. [Modified from Aptroot (1991)] Thallus crustose, brownish to gray, continuous, endophloedal; prothallus absent. Photobiont likely Trentepohlia. Ascomata perithecia, solitary or compound with multiple ostioles (astrothelioid), black, hemispherical, erumpent, 0.1-0.1 mm diam., 0.2-0.5 mm high. Perithecial wall completely carbonized, up to 150 μm thick; ostiole black, conical, skewed, 50-100 μm. Hamathecium not inspersed with oil droplets, gelatinized, K/I+ blue; interthecial filaments true paraphyses: simple, 1 μm thick; periphyses absent. Asci 60-80 x 7-10 μm with rounded ocular chamber, (4-)8-spored, uniseriate; ascospores hyaline, fusiform with subacute ends, 4-celled, symmetrically septate, not constricted at septa, 18-23 x (6-)7-10 μm; end cells slightly smaller than central cells; spore wall smooth; perispore absent.
Chemistry. Spot tests negative; no subtances detected by TLC.
Substrate and habitat. Corticolous in forests.
Distribution. Southeastern North America and Caribbean; in North Carolina found in the Coastal Plain ecoregion.
Literature
Aptroot, A. (1991) A monograph of the Pyrenulaceae (Excluding Anthracothecium and Pyrenula) and the Requienellaceae, with Notes on the Pleomassariaceae, the Trypetheliaceae and Mycomicrothelia (Lichenized and Non-lichenized Ascomycetes). Bibliotheca Lichenologica, Bd. 44, J. Cramer, Berlin, Stuttgart. 178 pp.