Thallus foliose, several lobes or reduced to a single lobe surrounding the apothecium; thin, reddish brown, epruinose, somewhat concave with raised margins, upper surface roughened; underside pale to reddish brown, with pale to brown rhizinae; upper cortex paraplectenchy-matous, algae Coccomyxa (green); KC+ red, containing methylgyrophorate. Apothecia in the upper surface of the thallus, not quite as sunken as in S. bispora but concave, often surrounded by remnants of cortex; disk reddish brown; subhymenium pale brownish; hymenium hyaline below, yellowing above, 210-260 μ; paraphyses coherent, septate, scarcely branched, the tips darkening, not thickened; asci clavate, 180 x 26 μ; spores 8, 2-celled, ellipsoid, becoming red-brown, 35-40 X 18-21 μ.

This species grows on soils and humus, sometimes on soil over rocks. Probably cocumpolar arctic-alpine, it is known from Europe, Greenland, Spitzbergen, Iceland, and in North America from Baffin Island to Alaska, south in the Rocky Mountains to Colorado and New Mexico. It is a rarely collected species.