E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Summary:
Subgenus Phlegmacium by phylogeny. Features include 1) a chestnut brown to dark red-brown cap, often with hygrophanous spots, when young with whitish frosty veil at the center, 2) grayish white to pale ochraceous yellow gills, 3) a whitish stem with whitish veil girdles that become rose-colored, 4) growth in conifer forest, and 5) microscopic characters. The description is derived from Knudsen(1).

Harrower(1) assigned a BC collection sequence 1 to Cortinarius variegatus in the sense of many European authors (D. Miller, pers. comm.). Morphological correlation is desirable. It is also found in Europe (Knudsen(1)).

Cap:
4-10cm across, hemispheric to convex, then expanded; chestnut brown to dark red-brown (becoming paler when old), often with some hygrophanous spots; "when young with a thin, whitish, appressed, frosty veil at centre"

Flesh:
whitish

Gills:
"greyish white, persistently pale ochraceous yellow"

Stem:
5-9cm x 1-1.5cm, clavate [club-shaped] "or with a faintly marginate bulb"; "whitish, with whitish veil girdles which become rose when exposed in air"

Veil:
thin, whitish, appressed, frosty veil remnants at cap center, whitish veil girdles on stem

Microscopic spores:
spores 6.5-7.5 x 3-4 microns, amygdaloid [almond-shaped] to elliptic, "pale and smooth"