Thallus crustose-gelatinous to coarsely granular, dispersed or in a crustose mass, rust-brown to rarely olive, the lobes less than 0.2 mm broad; cortex well marked; medulla of loose network of cells.

Medullary hyphae 2-3 /x thick when young, thickening to 5-11 ¡x.

Apothecia red-brown, often shining, strongly convex to spherical, to 0.5 mm broad, frequently conglomerate; hymenium 95-110 ¡x, the upper gelatin brown; subhymenium 30-95 ¡x\ exciple 10-80 fx broad, radiate or in old apothecia paraplectenchymatous; paraphyses 1-2 (x broad, the tips capitate, 5-8 ¡x, pigmented brown; asci 70-95 x 12-24 ¡x; spores 8, spindle-shaped, 7-10 celled, 35-75x4-7 ¡x.

This species grows on mosses, over other lichens, on earth and humus, and old wood. It is a circumpolar species known from Greenland, Iceland, Spitzbergen, Novaya Zemlya, Siberia, Fennoscan-dia, and the British Isles. In North America it has been collected on Ellesmere Island. It is probably usually overlooked because of its small size.