Description

 Thallus: foliose or rarely erect-subfruticose, small to medium sized, moderately to loosely attached, lobate; lobes: linear and discrete to somewhat more rounded, irregular or flabellate; upper surface: gray to brown or dark brown, without a granular or crystalline pruina, but occasionally with an epinecral layer that becomes patchy and pruinalike, occasionally with coarse (multicellular) cortical hairs (15-20 µm wide at base and tapered to a point and 50-150 µm long), usually near lobe ends; a few species with sparse to dense, tiny, hyphal hairs (one cell wide and mostly 10-15(-25) µm long) on lobe ends; upper cortex: paraplectenchymatous; medulla: white or occasionally orange to red; lower cortex: paraplectenchymatous; lower surface: usually dark brown to black at least in older parts, a few species remaining pale, white to tan or pale brown, sparsely to moderately rhizinate; rhizines: usually concolorous with the lower surface, simple or in a few species becoming rather sparsely squarrosely branched; Apothecia: with thalline exciple; asci: clavate, 8-spored; ascospores: Physcia-type or Pachysporaria-type, brown, 1-septate, 16-28 x 5.5-11 µm; Pycnidia: blackened and immersed or weakly emergent; conidia: ellipsoid, 2.5-4 x c. 1 µm, in one species cylindrical and 7-12 µm long; Secondary metabolites: terpenoids, anthraquinones, but sometimes in variable concentrations or, in many species, lacking altogether; Geography: primarily temperate or boreal, North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and Australia; Substrate: on bark, wood, rock, soil or mosses.; Phaeophyscia: occurring in the Sonoran Region