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 poorly known species of unclear relationships, with a reddish to orange-white thallus forming isles on a black hypothecium, which may fuse in later stages, immersed, immarginate, black-brown (pale brown to reddish-brown when moist) apothecia with convex discs, a hyaline hypothecium, a brownish epihymenium, 8-spored asci, and oblong to ellipsoid ascospores (10-15 × 5-7 μm); on siliceous rocks in the high-alpine belt; only known from the type locality in the Western Alps (Switzerland).
