Altitudinal distribution: alpine belt (potential vegetation: treeless Alpine grasslands and tundras, to the lower limit of perennial snow and the equilibrium line of glaciers)
Note: a fertile species with an areolate thallus in various shades of brownish-grey to dark brown with convex areoles, roundish to angular, lecideoid apothecia with umbonate to gyrose discs, and ellipsoid ascospores exceeding 10 µm in length; on siliceous boulders and outcrops in the boreal zone and in the montane to subalpine belt in temperate orobiomes, rarely higher; widespread in the Northern Hemisphere but not common, with a single record from the Eastern Alps (Austria).
