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, commensalistic, non-lichenized Ascomata: perithecioid (pseudothecia), externally black, smooth, ostiolate, +immersed in the thallus or apothecia of the host; exceptionally, grouped in host deformations (cecidia) ascomatal wall: usually intensely pigmented near the ostiolum, pigment amorphous and varying from blue-green to violet-brown or black; basal part: generally colorless, but in some taxa +pigmented; wall: formed by thin hyphae, with very reduced cells not forming a clearly prosoplectenchymatic structure, rather a textura intricata; between the ascomata of the fungus and the host thallus, a colorless layer formed by cells with a reduced lumen can frequently be observed hamathecium: formed by filiform, septate, simple or poorly anastomosed paraphysoids, the abundance of which is variable in the different taxa, I- asci: typically fissitunicate, cylindrical or cylindrical-clavate, with the endoascus slightly thickened at the ascus apex, with a small apical chamber, 2-8-spored, I-, only dextrinoid I-reaction in the plasma of young asci ascospores: hyaline, rarely non-septate, in most species with one or more transversal septa, oval, ellipsoid or fusiform, heteropolar or not, strongly heteropolar in some taxa; with a distinct, thin, gelatinous perispore, especially visible in young ascospores. Conidiomata: pycnidial, globose conidia: hyaline, simple, bacilliform Geography: abundant in the Northern Hemisphere (particularly in Europe, North America, North Africa and Asia), but also known from South America. Substrate: lichens and more rarely colonies of soil algae.