Physcia ucrainica was formally described as a new species in 2015 by the lichenologists Sergey Kondratyuk, László Lőkös, and Jae-Seoun Hur.

[3] Physcia ucrainica is distinguished by its rosette-like thallus which forms long and narrow lobes that are only horizontally oriented.

Unlike Physcia adscendens, it lacks ascending, helmet-shaped lobes and instead features well-developed, laminal, crater-like soralia mainly in the centre of the thallus.

The resultant morphology was noted to be similar to that of Physcia ucrainica, although molecular phylogenetics analysis of the internal transcribed spacer DNA sequences of these taxa suggest that they are independent lineages.

[4] This species is commonly found on horizontally oriented branches of Juniperus excelsa within Juniper forests of the "Novy Svit" Botanical Reserve near Sudak, Crimea.