Summary:
Subgenus Telamonia Section Brunneotincti. Features include large fleshy fruitbody, purplish gray cap that discolors brownish, pale grayish violet gills, stem widening downward, colored pale purplish gray becoming pale brownish, universal veil bluish violet, growth under conifers often in clusters, and microscopic characters including nearly round to broadly elliptic verrucose spores. The description is derived from Niskanen(1).

Cap:
(3)5-12cm across, at first hemispheric, later low convex to almost flat with persistently incurved margin; at first light gray, pinkish gray to pale red, later light brown to reddish brown with lavender margin, not hygrophanous, cap also described as "purplish gray when fresh then discoloring brownish"; dry, tomentose

Flesh:
in cap and upper stem violet and whitish, "in cortex violet, in other parts whitish, marbled, hygrophanous, discoloring slowly brownish when cut"

Gills:
adnexed to emarginate, relatively narrow to moderately broad, moderately thick, close to crowded; pale grayish violet when young, becoming dark brown; edge whitish to violet or colored as faces

Stem:
6-10cm x 1.2-2.4cm at top, 1.8-2.7cm at base, "slightly clavate to clavate"; "very pale purplish gray when young, whitish grayish to very pale brownish when old", complete and incomplete broad girdles from the bluish violet universal veil, with handling especially the lower stem becoming brownish; fibrillose; basal mycelium "first whitish or bluish violet, when pressed with the thumb becoming deep purple and later brown"

Veil:
universal veil "bluish violet, forming broad, complete and incomplete girdles" on stem

Odor:
indistinct

Microscopic spores:
spores 7.0-8.5 x 5.5-6.5 microns, nearly round to broadly elliptic, (size and shape varying much within one fruitbody), "moderately to somewhat coarsely verrucose, somewhat more strongly at the apex, almost nondextrinoid to slightly dextrinoid", wall medium thick; basidia 4-spored, 25-40 x 8-9 microns, clavate, colorless or with yellowish content in KOH and Melzer''s reagent; clamp connections present

Notes:
Collections were examined from BC, NL, QC, TN, (Niskanen(1))

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