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

Thallus: granular to verrucose, usually thick and well developed but sometimes almost immersed in the substrate surface: light to dark gray Apothecia: abundant, sessile or somewhat immersed, (0.9-)1.5-2.5 mm in diam., 0.4-0.7 mm high, short cylindrical to lenticular, with a faint white pruina on the outer surface of the edge of the exciple exciple: 80-170 µm thick laterally, consisting of strongly sclerotized, interwoven hyphae and with a 6-9 µm thick, gelatinous layer at the surface, strongly thickened at the base, up to 450 µm high, medium-dark brown hypothecium: up to 170 µm high, dark brown, consisting of periclinally arranged, sclerotized hyphae asci: cylindrical, persisting until the spores are nearly ripe, 42-55 x 4.5-6µm, with uniseriately arranged spores ascospores: brown, 1-septate and constricted in the middle, broadly ellipsoid, 14-19 x 8-11 µm, with an ornamentation of mainly longitudinally arranged, very minute ridges in young spores, that are disrupted by a few irregular cracks during the maturation of the spore; surface when mature: with minute ridges, appearing striated Pycnidia: at first spherical to slightly flattened, 80-140 x 55-70 µm, semi-immersed in the thallus, initially with punctiform ostiole, later with irregularly split ostiolar area; conidiophores: branched; conidiogenous cells: short cylindrical, 3-4 x 2.5-3 µm conidia: produced acrogenously and pleurogenously, non-septate, hyaline, cylindrical, 3-4 x 1 µm, narrower towards one end Spot tests: thallus K+ yellow to reddish brown, C-, P-, P+ pale yellow or P+ yellowish red Secondary metabolites: placodiolic acid (Tibell, 1998), usually with atranorin (Tibell, 1971 and Galloway, 1985); sometimes a yellow, unidentified pigment (3 unknowns, including a yellow pigment (Purvis, 1992). Substrate and ecology: usually on wood, including old wooden posts and fences, and dead, dry and decorticated twigs of living Larix, Picea and Pinus, also on rough, acidic bark of old trunks of Larix, Picea, Abies, Quercus, and Betula, rarely on rock World distribution: Europe, western North America, South America, and Australasia Sonoran distribution: southern California at low to high elevations. Notes: Cyphelium inquinans is characterized by its large, well-developed, verrucose gray thallus, its distinctive white pruina on the upper and outer edge of the exciple, and its spore ornamentation.