Nash, T.H., Ryan, B.D., Gries, C., Bungartz, F., (eds.) 2004. Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region. Vol 2.
Thallus: crustose, granulose-pulverulent, very thin (up to 0.2 mm thick), continuous to rimose, not distinctly areolate, indeterminate, nearly obsolete, ecorticate; prothallus: absent upper surface: sordid yellowish white, esorediate Apothecia: round, smooth, grouped or crowded, sessile, barely constricted at base, 0.5-0.6 mm in diam., 0.3 mm thick disc: pale yellowish pink to moderate reddish brown to yellow-brown or sordid testaceous (when moistened light flesh-colored), plane to convex, thinly and very finely pruinose (pruina just barely perceptible at high magnification) margin: concolorous with thallus, at first distinct, 0.1 mm wide, level with disc, +entire, often becoming excluded, without a parathecial ring amphithecium: present, with a well developed algal layer extending +continuously below the hypothecium, c. 65 µm thick marginally and 100-150 µm thick below, +air-filled, with fine brown granules in the un differentiated medulla, corticate; cortex: pale yellow within, +dark sordid yellow at the surface, gelatinous, 35-50 µm thick, with numerous fine brownish or yellowish granules (pol+; insoluble in K), extending considerably to the underside parathecium: hyaline, gelatinous, intergrading with hypothecium towards inside, at surface densely inspersed with fine granules, 35-55 µm thick, with intricate hyphae (distinct in K) with long and narrow lumina epihymenium: with an uneven surface, inspersed with fine greenish yellow granules (insoluble in K; according to Hasse producing a K+ pale violet reaction) penetrating down to the base of the hymenium along the paraphyses, 15-18 µm thick hymenium: hyaline or appearing cloudy gray, 60-65 µm tall, I+ dark blue; paraphyses: firmly coherent and appearing indistinct, but become free and distinct under greater pressure, simple to sparsely branched, c. 1.5 µm wide; apices: hyaline or faintly yellow, not thickened; subhymenium: hyaline, 20-35 µm thick, not distinctly delimited; hypothecium: hyaline asci: clavate to inflated-clavate, c. 45 x 12 µm, 8-spored ascospores: hyaline, simple or rarely with a thin septum, +broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid, often coherent even outside of the ascus, (8-)910(-11) x (4-)5-6)-7) µm [12-14 x 7 µm according to protologue, 16 x 7 µm according to Hasse 1897] Pycnidia: not found Spot tests: thallus K- (K+ orange according to Hasse), C-, KC-, P-; apothecial tissues K- or very pale yellow, C-, KC-, N- Secondary metabolites: not analyzed due to tiny amount of material in the one collection seen so far. Substrate and ecology: on slate or calcareous rock World and Sonoran distribution: Santa Catalina Island, California, presently known only from the type collection. Notes: Magnusson (1935) stated that L. phaeophora resembles L. polytropa but the disc is more yellow-brown, and the apothecia have a well-developed algal layer at least below the hypothecium. The dense inspersion of the apothecial tissues with fine granules (insoluble in K seems) in L. phaeophora seem to be distinctive; presumably these granules are produced by one or more secondary metabolites. Without definite positive spot tests or chromatographic data, the chemistry (and therefore placement of the species) is uncertain. But based on the K- reaction and general appearance, L. phaeophora seems unlikely to belong to Lecanora s. str., and may belong to the L. dispersa group. Of the latter group L. phaeophora is probably most similar to saxicolous material of L. hageni, but L. phaeophora differs at least from the more common saxicolous forms of that species in having a +soon excluded thalline parathecium, paler, at most faintly pruinose discs, and pale paraphyses tips. A superficially similar species is L. salina, that differs in lacking epihymenial granules and in having branched paraphyses.