Pyxine sorediata has been reported from regions of North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australasia.

In his brief account, Acharius mentioned the circular (orbicular) grey crust he described as wrinkled, folded, and overlapping, the spongy black underside, and the scattered apothecia.

[6] The Scottish naturalist Archibald Menzies collected a specimen from Scotland, which was later named by James Edward Smith as Lichen daedalus in 1810.

The lobes comprising the thallus measure 1–2.5 mm wide, and are pruinose at the tips;[6] they are in close contact, often overlapping.

[9] Phylogenetic studies have shown that the corticolous Chinese species Pyxine hengduanensis is closely related to P. sorediata.

Unlike P. sorediata, which has a yellow medulla and soralia that develop marginally from fissures and then become laminal and disc-shaped, P. hengduanensis has marginal labriform soralia that develop from the centre of the pseudocyphellae, with grey to bluish-grey soredia and a pale yellow medulla.

[10] It has been recorded in the Pyrenees, the Caucasus, in the Uholka-Shyrokyi Luh primeval beech forest in the Ukrainian Carpathians,[13] and from the eastern coast of Lake Baikal in Siberia.