First described by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1805, it is characterised by its small to medium-sized grey thallus with a cracked upper surface and smooth reproductive structures.

The species has a primarily Holarctic distribution, being found across Europe from Fennoscandia to the Pyrenees, with populations occurring from sea level to alpine elevations around 2,000 m (6,600 ft).

The species belongs to the subgenus Agyrophora, one of eight recognised subgenera within Umbilicaria, and is distinguished by its smooth, non-pustulate thallus and distinctive asexual reproduction through specialised structures called thalloconidia.

[3] In its taxonomic history, the species has been placed in various genera, including the eponymous genus Lichen, as well as Gyrophora, and Agyrophora; Jean Étienne Duby classified it as a variety of Umbilicaria flocculosa.

[1] When Swiss lichenologist Ludwig Schaerer discovered the species in the Alps in 1817, he overlooked de Candolle's earlier naming and described it as Gyrophora atropruinosa var.

This distribution pattern supports the hypothesis that U. leiocarpa could have survived the last ice age in refugia in Southern Norway, from where it may have spread along the Scandinavian mountain chain to its current locations.