Summary: Features include an ochraceous brown to orange-brown cap, grayish white flesh, often with a bluish tinge in the top of the stem, pale violaceous blue to grayish white young gills, a stem that is grayish white with a violaceous tinge when young, growth under conifers (particularly spruce in northern Europe), and microscopic characters. The description is derived from Knudsen(1).
Cap: 4-8cm across, hemispheric to convex, then expanding; "ochraceous brown to fulvous brown"; "slightly innately fibrillose" when old
Flesh: grayish white, "often with a bluish tinge in stem top"
Gills: pale violaceous blue to grayish white
Stem: 5-10cm x 1-1.5(2)cm, grayish white with violaceous tinge when young, becoming +/- brownish when bruised
Microscopic spores: spores 9.5-11 x (5.5)6-6.5 microns, amygdaloid [almond-shaped] to slightly citriform [lemon-shaped], verrucose
Notes: Harrower(1) assigned a BC collection sequence 42 to Cortinarius spadicellus. Morphological correlation is desirable. It is also found in Europe (Knudsen(1)).
EDIBILITY
Habitat and Range
Habitat
with Picea (spruce), fall, (Knudsen(1) for northern Europe)