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

Life habit: primarily lichenized, but lichenicolous and parasitic stages exist in some species Thallus: crustose, continuous to cracked-areolate upper surface: gray-white to gray or yellowish, smooth to verrucose, often pruinose epinecral layer: thin, gelatinous medulla: white; of irregularly interwoven hyphae, I+ bluish or I- photobiont: primary one a Trebouxia, secondary photobiont absent; layer: horizontally continuous; algal cells: 7-18 µm in diam. lower cortex: absent lower surface: firmly attached to the substrate with bundles of hyphae penetrating into it Ascomata: apothecial but at first perithecia-like, later urceolate, lecanoroid, or remaining perithecioid when mature, laminal, immersed, exciple: brown to dark brown; paraphyses: simple, lax; hymenial gel: non-amyloid; lateral paraphyses present, simple, brownish or hyaline asci: elongate-clavate to subcylindrical, the wall ± evenly thickened when mature, with a somewhat abrupt apical thickening with a thin, internal apical beak or a downward, convex swelling when young, lacking any apical apparatus, the contents I+ orange-red, the walls I-, not fissitunicate; 1-8-spored ascospores: broadly ellipsoid, brown to dark brown or purplish black, muriform, smooth, lacking a distinct perispore or gelatinous sheath, I- or I+ bluish Conidiomata: pycnidial, in slightly raised warts, black conidia: elongate-ellipsoid or bacilliform, 4-7 x 1-1.5 µm Secondary metabolites: para-depsides and ß-orcinol depsidones Geography: cosmopolitan, but with the center of distribution in semi-arid subtropical regions Substrate: soil, moss, detritus or rocks.