Summary:
Subgenus Phlegmacium. Features include 1) a glutinous, bright yellow brown cap that may be covered toward the margin by white veil remnants, 2) gills that are pale lilac to argillaceous with a slight lilac tinge and later gray brown, 3) a dry, club-shaped stem that is white or "pale pinkish buff" and is floccose in its lower part from a strongly developed universal veil, and 4) almond-shaped verrucose spores. Cortinarius variosimilis is one of the more common Phlegmacium species in western North America (Trudell(4)).

Cap:
3-8.5cm across, hemispheric, convex to convex-umbonate, margin incurved but not inrolled; bright yellow brown, toward margin paler and often covered by strong white veil remains; glutinous, not innate fibrillose

Flesh:
whitish, "pale pinkish buff", to slightly yellowish in the base

Gills:
emarginate, crowded (90-100 reaching stem), 3 tiers of subgills, 0.4-0.8cm broad; pale lilac to argillaceous with slight lilac tinge, later gray-brown; edges strongly eroded to serrulate

Stem:
4-11cm x 0.7-2cm, widening to club-shaped base 1.5-3.2cm wide; white or "pale pinkish buff"; "below the cortina floccose from strongly developed, peronate wooly whitish veil", discoloring buffy ochraceous

Veil:
universal veil white, woolly, strongly developed, sheathing lower stem, sometimes with an almost membranaceous ring when fresh

Odor:
not distinctive

Microscopic spores:
spores 8.8-11.2 x 5.9-6.9 microns, almond-shaped, verrucose; basidia 4-spored, (30)35-38(39) x (8.5)9-10(10.4) microns, clavate; clamp connections present

Spore deposit:
[presumably a shade of brown]

Notes:
"occurring both in Rocky Mountain spruce-fir forests and the forests of the Cascade and Coast ranges", (Trudell(4)). It has been found at least in WA, OR, CA, and WY, (Moser(8)). DNA sequencing indicates its presence in BC (Harrower(1)).

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