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 species with a white, thin thallus of scattered to contiguous, angular areoles reacting K-, on a black hypothallus, a I+ blue medulla, numerous, black, sometimes thinly pruinose, sessile apothecia (2-2.5 mm in diam.), the disc urceolate to concave, the margin prominent and wavy, an olivaceous epithecium reacting K-, a strongly amyloid hymenium of coherent paraphyses, a colourless hypothecium, 8-spored asci, and ellipsoid to oblong, hyaline, simple ascospores measuring 12-17 × 6-7(-8) μm; only known from the type collection in Valpelline, at 2,900 m.
