Nash, T.H., Ryan, B.D., Gries, C., Bungartz, F., (eds.) 2004. Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region. Vol 2.

Thallus: crustose, rather thick warts or areoles that soon coalesce to form a contiguous crust with a +granular surface areoles: moderately to strongly convex, marginally incised, often subsquamulose, 0.1-0.4 mm in diam. surface: pale beige to dark gray, often with a greenish or brownish hue, sometimes entirely ash-gray; dull, mostly sorediate but Sonoran material so far without soralia soralia: uniform in color with the thallus, not clearly delimited, often confluent and forming a thick, cracked, leprose crust soredia: soredia 40-90 µm in diam., coarse and often imperceptibly merging with the granular, esorediate parts of the thallus. Apothecia: typically forming irregular clusters of individual apothecia, rounded to somewhat deformed, sessile with a strongly constricted base, sometimes almost stipitate, 0.15-0.35(-0.6) mm in diam. disc: dark brown to brown-black, sometimes grayish pruinose, plane or weakly convex, sometimes slightly concave exciple: pale to dark brown, ±pruinose when young, thin, persistent or rarely excluded in older apothecia, in section patchily dark brown sometimes with a greenish or reddish hue, frequently with a darker brown outer edge, laterally 15-35 µm, basally 40-120 µm wide, composed of densely entangled hyphae with +rounded cell lumina epihymenium: brown or red-brown, granular, 5-15 µm thick hymenium: hyaline to pale brown, (35-)45-55 µm tall; paraphyses: basally hyaline, with lumina of 0.7-1(-1.5) µm, apically mostly brown, 1-2.5(-4) µm wide, weakly to moderately branched and anastomosing; subhymenium: hyaline above, dark brown below; hypothecium: dark brown, inverted cone-shaped; hypothecium and subhymenium: together 105-220 µm thick asci: clavate, 8-spored ascospores: hyaline, simple or very rarely 1-septate, ellipsoid, 7-11.3(-16) x (3-)3.23.9(-5) µm Pycnidia: immersed conidia: filiform 13-14 x 1 µm. Spot tests: thallus K-, C-, KC-, P-, UV+ white Secondary metabolites: perlatolic acid. Substrate and ecology: preferrably on decaying or burnt wood of conifers from sea level to 2500 m World distribution: circumpolar in boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere Sonoran distribution: Arizona.