It was first formally described as a species of Lecidea in 1818 by German botanist Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Meyer.

André Aptroot transferred it to the genus Pyxine in 1987.

[2] The lichen has lobes with distinctly round, laminal soralia.

It contains lichexanthone, a lichen product that causes the cortex to fluoresce bright yellow when lit with a long-wavelength UV light.

A chemical spot test of the medulla with an aqueous solution of potassium hydroxide (i.e., the K test) is partly K− and partly K+ (purplish).