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(Map updated: 11 August 2009)

This soft, damp, calcareous rock specialist (old mortar especially) with a thin, grey-brown, granular thallus, has its large, almost flat-topped, spherical discs (perithecia) up to half-buried in the substratum (to 1.5mm diam.) with just its top end showing. The discs are double-strengthened by a thick wall of black tissue (involucrellum) which curves around it like a cannonball. Scattered in Ireland, but probably much overlooked.

Key characteristics

• The relatively large spherical discs, thick involucrellum and requirement for soft, calcareous rock, for example, old mortar, should serve to distinguish it
• Acrocordia conoidea can look similar but is pinkish with rounder discs and occurs on harder limestones such as those used for headstones in old churchyards.

NBN Atlas mapping: Species account : NBN Atlas UK Species Observations database

iNaturalist: Species account : iNaturalist World Species Observations database

Original text submitted by Vince J. Giavarini