E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

General:
Common Name: The Stipplescale Lichens. Suggested by the typical scalelike appearance and by the presence of dot-like perithecia over upper surface. Minute to small stratified squamulose or occasionally fruticose lichens, corticate above, corticate or not below, lacking soredia and isidia, squamules/lobes tightly appressed to erect, brownish, rotund to elongate, averaging to 0.5–7 mm wide. Lower surface (when visible) brown or black, lacking rhizines, attached to substrate by noncorticate rhizoids. Medulla white. Photobiont green.
Ascocarp a perithecium immersed in upper surface, appearing blackish or brownish from above; spores multicelled (muriform), ellipsoid, brown, 2 per ascus. Algal cells included with spores in perithecium.
Over base-rich soil or rock.
Notes: Endocarpon is mainly a temperate genus of approximately 30 species. Eight of these are reported for North America, though only two are known to occur in B.C. Chemistry is of no diagnostic value in this genus and is omitted in the following species accounts. For points of distinction with similar species in other genera, see the descriptions under Catapyrenium.

Species description:
Over rock; thallus squamulose or fruticose, consisting of upright squamules or cylindrical lobes

Comments:
Western North America material of E. pulvinatum is sometimes referred to the taxonomically rather dubious E. tortuosum Herre.