Thallus sordid yellow or pale olive, verrucose, ± glebose, uneven, ± continuous or areolate, delimited by a thin, black, irregular prothallus, in patches 2-3(-5) cm diam. Apothecia dark red-brown to blackish, ± innate or flattened, 0.4-1.1 mm diam., to very shallowly convex, round to irregular-deformed, matt, immarginate, rarely with a thin, pale brown margin, surrounded by a pseudo-thalline margin of flattened or raised thalline granules. Epithecium fuscous-brown, colour in swollen apices of paraphyses. Hymenium 90 µm tall. Hypothecium opaque, thick, brown-black. Ascospores acicular, 7-18-septate, (50-)70-87 × 3.2-3.5 µm.