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

Thallus: crustose to subsquamulose, dispersed areolate, rimose-areolate, granular, corticated, 0.2-8 mm thick and up to 15 cm wide surface: pale to dark gray, ochre, orange-brown, yellow, or +intensely suffused yellow-green photobiont: primary one a trebouxioid green alga, secondary one absent Ascomata: apothecial, round or somewhat irregular, sessile, 1-3 mm in diam., often lecanorine disc: red, plane to convex amphithecium: present or not exciple: thick, concolorous with disc epihymenium: deep red, encrusted with haemoventosin crystals hymenium: hyaline to pale red above, paraphyses: agglutinated, slightly thickened at the tip, rarely branched or anastomosed asci: clavate, with shallow, uniformly K/I+ blue apical dome, lacking a distinct ocular chamber or apical cushion, 8-spored ascospores: , hyaline, simple to transversely multiseptate, ellipsoid or narrowly fusiform, sometimes spathulate, +spirally arranged in ascus, lacking an epispore Conidiomata: pycnidial, immersed, visible as black dots 100-400 µm in diam.; wall: hyaline, except for dark green (K-, N+ red) or red (K+ blue then violet) zone around ostiole; conidiophores type VI sensu Vobis (1980) conidia: hyaline, simple, bacilliform, 7-11 x c. 1 µm Secondary metabolites: commonly the red pigment haemoventosin, various aliphatic acids, orcinol depsides, and the dibenzofuran usnic acid and more rarely terpenes and depsidones Substrate: on well-lit, hard siliceous rocks or bark or wood Geography: circumpolar and high montane or alpine extending southwards to central Mexico and Japan, and then temperate South America. Notes: Ophioparma, initially treated as two arctic-alpine species occurring on rock (Rogers and Hafellner 1988), was segregated from Haematomma, that also has a +red apothecial disc and acicular transversely septate spores, but differs in having a thin true exciple, a Lecanora-type ascus, thin, richly branched and anastomosed paraphyses not thickened at the tips, and partly a different chemistry. Subsequently the circumscription of the genus has been expanded to include four species occurring on bark (Kalb and Staiger 1995; Printzen and Rambold 1996). Both Loxospora and Ropalospora have different ascus types from Ophioparma and lack haemoventosin (Staiger and Kalb 1995 and Ekman 1996). Potentially one might expect O. ventosa (L.) Norman to occur in the Sonoran region because of its disjunct distribution between Oregon and central Mexico (May 1997), but it has not yet been found in any alpine areas of the southern Rocky Mountains.