[1] Found on the Galápagos Islands, it was formally described as a new species in 2019 by lichenologists Frank Bungartz and Adriano Spielmann.

The type specimen was collected by the first author from the foothills of Media Luna on San Cristóbal Island, where it was found in dry, open woodland growing on the trunk of Bursera graveolens.

[2] The upper thallus surface of Parmotrema lawreyi is a pale greenish-yellow color and appears dull, smooth, and not wrinkled, with occasional cracks but not forming a distinctly net-like pattern.

The lichen has pustules that develop into isidia, which can vary in shape from initially cylindrical to dactyliform and sometimes flattened or squamulose-lobulate.

With age, the isidia become increasingly branched and can develop into a coralloid or cauliflower-shaped structure that ruptures into coarse, granular, pseudocorticate soredia.