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

Life habit: lichenicolous Ascomata: black perithecia, spherical to pyriform, immersed in the host thallus to almost sessile, without papillae or setae, with flattened ostiolar region; wall: brown, with the pigment deposited in the cell walls, composed of several layers of isodiametric to tangentially flattened cells, paler towards the center, enlarged in the ostiolar region hymenium: hyaline, with hemiamyloid hymenial gel, i.e. I+ orange-red and K/I+ blue hamathecium: in mature perithecia present as paraphysoids and a crown of distinct periphyses paraphysoids: numerous or in overmature ascomata almost completely reduced, delicate, mostly unbranched and without anastomoses, with indistinct septations periphyses: distinctly septate, unbranched or with one ramification and a few anastomoses asci: verrucarealean, not fissitunicate, ventricose to broadly cylindrical, shortly stipitate, with apically enlarged ascal wall without an ocular chamber, 8spored ascospores: hyaline when young but brown when mature, simple (a few 2-celled spores sometimes present), ovate; wall: with microrugulate sculpture, with thin perisporal sheath when young Conidiomata: not observed Geography: widely distributed but all species rare, so far known only from the Northern Hemisphere Substrate: normally inhabiting calcicolous crustose lichens, rarely on such over other types of rock (see below); type species on Acarospora ssp.; the second species, Adelococcus interlatens (Arnold) Matzer & Hafellner, on some unrelated calcicolous lichens. Notes: Adelococcus is closely related with Endococcus, from which it can be distinguished by its persistent paraphysoids and its predominantly one-celled ascospores. The verrucarealean nature of Adelococcus has been established by Matzer and Hafellner (1990). Later on Triebel (1993) described the family Adelococcaceae to accommodate Adelococcus and a few other genera with mostly lichenicolous species.