Summary:
Subgenus Telamonia Section Biformes. Features include 1) a hygrophanous red-brown cap, 2) a long, often rooting stem without violet tints, but with a thin white veil that forms sparse girdles or irregular zones at first, 3) conspicuously saturated brick red gills, and 4) growth under conifers, primarily spruce but also pine. |A neotype was selected by Moser from Sweden, and Liimatainen(11) say this, "it was clear that C. biformis Fr. sensu Funga Nordica (e.g. Niskanen et al. 2012) was a different species than C. testaceofolius H. Lindstr. & Soop. However, later it turned out that the neotype Moser had selected for C. biformis was in fact an older synonym for C. testaceofolius, an outcome that no one had previously thought possible. Therefore, sect. Biformes Moenne-Locc. & Reumaux and sect. Testaceofolii are now synonyms" (Latin names and book title italicized, umlaut on the e of Moenne). That is to say, Cortinarius biformis is now defined by the original description of Cortinarius testaceofolius. This concept of Cortinarius biformis used here is specifically not the concept used in Funga Nordica, and the correct name for the latter is unclear. Lindstrom(1) differentiates C. biformis Fr. from C. testaceofolius by a frequent violet tinge at the stem apex, trivially ocher gills, and smaller spores - this is also a different concept of C. biformis from the one used here, and the differentiation shows that C. testaceofolius does not have a violet tinge at the stem apex. |The description here is derived from the original description of Cortinarius testaceofolius (Lindstrom(1)).

Cap:
3-5(6)cm across, conic when young, later convex to flat and slightly umbonate, margin incurved for a long time, undulating, with a whitish to cream-colored veil attached when young; hygrophanous, dark ocher-brown to warm chestnut-brown when moist, drying light brown; smooth, (Breitenbach), 3-5cm across, conic to bell-shaped, flattening, slightly umbonate, margin persistently inrolled; [shown as ochraceous brown]; cap surface smooth, margin often wavy with whitish veil remnants when young, (Buczacki)

Flesh:
thin; cream to dark brown, sometimes with violet tint in top of stem; flesh also referred to as brownish, (Breitenbach), "variable, cream to dark brown, violet tinged at stem apex", (Buczacki)

Gills:
"emarginate to adnexed", broad, "moderately crowded to crowded", 40-60 reaching stem, 2-3 subgills between neighboring gills; "saturated brick red to (yellowish) red brown", "when older often dark spotted", "edge sometimes paler and uneven"

Stem:
6-15(20)cm x 0.4-1.2(1.5)cm, long and slender, cylindric to slightly claviform [club-shaped] with expanded base up to 2cm wide, sometimes hollow at the center, often rooting deeply into the humus, "sometimes tortuous"; when young white, somewhat shiny with grayish hygrophanous stripes, gradually ochraceous to pale brick or gray brown; minutely fibrillose, the thin white veil "forming sparse girdles or irregular zones, later fibrillose, indistinct"

Veil:
veil white, although one of the collections has a vaguely ocher veil; cortina white, fleeting

Odor:
insignificant

Taste:
insignificant

Microscopic spores:
spores (7.5)8-9(10) x (4.5)5-6(6.5) microns, "broadly elliptic, weakly to moderately verrucose, more distinctly so near apiculus"; gill edge "fertile with 4-spored basidia and scattered, commensurate, clavate sterile cells"; cap cuticle "with moderately thin epicutis (5-9 layers)", hyphae in upper part often separated, 50-100 x 2-4(7) microns, colorless, "in lower part more regular and gradually wider" (4-7 microns), "with faintly pigmented walls"; hypoderm of well differentiated hyphae, 40-60(110) x 5-25 microns, "with brownish thick-wall pigments", in lower part also with a few narrow, granular pigmented hyphae; trama with more irregular hyphae, "some expanded", 5-10(20) microns wide, "some minutely pigmented"

Notes:
Harrower(1) assigned a boreal British Columbia collection sequence 159 to Cortinarius biformis, but this collection is assigned the name Cortinarius kauffmanianus in Liimatainen(11). Harrower(1) assigned a BC collection sequence 165 to Cortinarius testaceofolius, listed by Liimatainen(11) as a synonym of Cortinarius biformis. Morphological correlation is desirable. In the original description of Cortinarius testaceofolius, the holotype is from Sweden and specimens examined were from Sweden and Norway.

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Cortinarius testaceofolius H. Lindstr. & Soop