Known from several locations in the San Francisco Bay area of the United States, it is a marine lichen that inhabits intertidal zones, and as such is immersed in seawater on a regular basis.

[2] The lichen was first formally described as a new species in 1997 by Richard Moe from specimens collected from Franciscan sandstone at the upper intertidal zone of Fort Mason, San Francisco, California, in 1975.

The species epithet honors mycologist and lichenologist Isabelle Tavares of the Herbarium of the University of California at Berkeley, who introduced the author to the study of lichens.

[2] In 2011, Cécile Gueidan, Holger Thüs, and Sergio Pérez-Ortega transferred the taxon to the genus Wahlenbergiella, following a molecular phylogenetics-led revision of several genera of the family Verricariaceae.

The frequency of perithecia ranges from sparse to crowded; they are flask-shaped and completely immersed in the thallus, measuring 300–500 μm in diameter.