Summary:
Subgenus Telamonia Section Niveoglobosi (used to be considered as in Subgenus Sericeocybe). Features include silky, dry, silvery whitish cap that becomes pale brown, flesh that is watery-mottled whitish, gills that are pale grayish brown or pale yellowish brown, becoming darker yellowish brown, silky dry stem that is whitish becoming pale brown with floccose girdles and zones, association with birch or sometimes just with conifers, and microscopic characters. This is what has been known in the Pacific Northwest as Cortinarius pinetorum (Fr.) Kauffman and is quite common. There was an invalid publication as Cortinarius alboglobosus Kytov., Liimat. & Niskanen, Funga Nordica: 753. 2008.

Cap:
3-6(7)cm across, bell-shaped - convex, obtuse or broadly subumbonate [somewhat umbonate], margin incurved at first, thin, at length decurved [downcurved]; silvery-whitish to "light drab", becoming deeper drab on drying; bald, "innately silky, sometimes almost viscid in wet weather, shining", margin white-flocculose-silky at first, (Kauffman), 3.1-7.5cm across, silvery white, becoming tinged with pale brownish lilac when old; smooth silky-shining, feels tacky when wet, (Stuntz)

Flesh:
moderately thick on disc; watery-mottled, then as if subhygrophanous [somewhat hygrophanous], (Kauffman), white; watery-mottled, (Stuntz)

Gills:
"crowded to moderately spaced", "pale greyish brown to pale yellowish brown, later yellowish brown to dark yellowish brown", (Niskanen), adnexed, rounded near stem or at length emarginate, close to subdistant, moderately narrow to rather broad, 0.5-0.8cm, becoming ventricose, thickish; at first pallid or with a tint of drab, then alutaceous, (Kauffman), pallid (Stuntz)

Stem:
4.0-9.0cm x 1.0-2.5cm at top, 1.5-3.0cm wide at base, "slightly clavate"; "whitish fibrillose, later pale brown"; basal mycelium white, (Niskanen), 4-7cm x 0.6-1.2cm at top, club-shaped and widening downward or club-shaped - subbulbous, becoming elongate-subequal, solid; colored as cap; sheathed at first below middle by thin, appressed, whitish universal veil, becoming bald and at length silky-shining, (Kauffman), 5-7.5cm x 0.6-1.2cm, "with club-shaped base, sheathed with the copious white veil at first" becoming satiny-shining when old, silvery whitish at first, tinted with pale brownish lilac when old, (Stuntz)

Veil:
universal veil fairly abundant, white, "forming floccose girdles and zones" on stem, (Niskanen), universal veil whitish (Kauffman)

Odor:
in gills, "indistinct or somewhat fruity", (Niskanen), slight or penetrating-earthy (Kauffman), varies mild to earthy (Stuntz)

Taste:
slightly disagreeable (Kauffman)

Microscopic spores:
spores 7.7-8.8 x 5.2-6.1 microns, mostly oval with rounded apex, "fairly finely to moderately, evenly verrucose, not more strongly so at the apex, moderately dextrinoid", (Niskanen), spores 7-8.5(9) x 5-5.5(6) microns, subelliptic, inequilateral, narrower toward one end, almost smooth, pale yellowish brown under the microscope, (Kauffman), [presumably without apical pore]

Spore deposit:
[presumably brownish]

Notes:
Collections were from BC, WA, ID, QC, Finland (including type), France, and Sweden. Kauffman gives for CO and Europe including Sweden

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Cortinarius pinetorum Fr. sensu Kauffman Pap.