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 silicicolous species of unclear relationships, with a thallus of reddish-brown to greenish-brown, densely arranged, small areoles on a black prothallus, marginate, plane, black apothecia with a pigmented hypothecium and an olive-blackish epihymenium, 8-spored asci, and oblong to ellipsoid ascospores (9-10 × 4-5 µm); only known from the type locality in the Western Alps (Switzerland).