Nash, T.H., Ryan, B.D., Gries, C., Bungartz, F., (eds.) 2002. Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region. Vol 1.

Life habit: lichenized Thallus: umbilicate, foliose, fruticose, with deeply divided lobes, gelatinous when wet surface: black, smooth or covered by numerous globose to scale-like isidia anatomy: ecorticate, heteromerous, with a compact central strand of periclinally arranged hyphae and reticulate anatomy at the thallus periphery photobionts: primary one a chroococcoid cyanobacterium, secondary photobiont absent Ascomata: apothecial, laminal on thallus or marginal, orbicular, half-immersed to sessile or stipitate; margin: distinct to prominent, with thalloid rim ontogeny: hemiangiocarpous, ascogonia arising in a tangle of generative hyphae beneath the thallus surface ascoma anatomy: exciple: absent; epithecium: brownish yellow; hypothecium: hyaline asci: prototunicate, wall thin, nonamyloid, 8-spored but sometimes fewer ascospores: simple, ellipsoid, broad ellipsoid to globose; 9-15 x 7-9 µm; walls: thin, hyaline Conidiomata: pycnidial, laminal, immersed conidia: ellipsoid, bacilliform or globose, c. 3 x 1 µm Secondary metabolites: not detected Geography: world wide in arid to semi-arid regions Substrate: calcareous or siliceous rock. Notes: The genus differs from Thyrea in its deeply divided, tongue shaped lobes, its sessile to stipitate apothecia and its type of ascoma development starting with a tangle of generative hyphae.