| 1. | The surface is also finely fibrillose with tiny scales ( squamules ).
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| 2. | Lobes are sometimes short and like squamules.
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| 3. | When it forms thick clumps it is easily identified with its elevated squamules and thick stipes.
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| 4. | Irregular 0.3-1.5 mm in diameter squamules sometimes grow as lobes.
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| 5. | Apothecia variably grow from large and obvious lecanorine discs, to being immersed in the squamule.
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| 6. | They are umbillicate with flat to erect squamule lobes that attach from a central holdfast or cluster of rhizenes.
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| 7. | Competition for space with other lichens stimulates longer stipes to develop, whereby the squamules may overlay other lichens.
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| 8. | The squamules are peltate ( like shields attached from the lower surface ), up to 8 mm in diameter.
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| 9. | Each squamule has 0 or one 1 mm round to angular apothecia immersed in it, outside desert habitats, but may have 2 to 10 per in deserts.
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| 10. | The " Cladonia " morpho-type has many more species, and is generally described as a group of squamulose ( grow from squamules ), cup-bearing lichens.
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