Altitudinal distribution: subalpine belt (potential vegetation: open, taiga-like forests dominated by Larix decidua and/or Pinus cembra and Rhododendron)
Note: a species resembling a poorly developed V. nigrescens, with an epilithic, black-brown, rimose to areolate thallus, hemispherically protruding, black ascomata (to c. 0.25 mm in diam.), an involucrellum tightly adpressed to the perithecial wall and reaching down to the base, 8-spored asci, and ellipsoid, simple ascospores (11-18 × 5-7 μm); only known from the type locality in the Eastern Alps (Switzerland), on dolomite.
