Thompson, J., 1984. American Arctic Lichens: The Macrolichens.
Thallus crustose, of granular, chinky, umbilicate verrucules, red-brown above, black below. Apothecia minute to small, to 0.3 mm broad, adnate; margin thin, crenulate, disappearing, of pseudocortex, lacking algae in outer part; disk flat to convex, red-brown, shining; hypothecium brownish; epihymenium brown, inspersed; hymenium hyaline, 125-150 μm; paraphyses slender, not branched, septate, not thickened at tips, 2 μm, gelatinized; asci with 1+ blue outer coat and bipartite 1+ blue tholus with broad “ocular chamber”; spores 8, hyaline, simple, oblong to slightly curved, 9-13 X 4-5.5 μm.
This species grows on acid rocks. It is circumpolar arctic-alpine and rare. It is known from Europe, Siberia, Greenland, Novaya Zemlya, New Zealand and from Alaska, Washington, Montana, Colorado, and New England, with one locality in the upper Mackenzie River valley of the Northwest Territories.