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Species Information
Summary: Subgenus Telamonia Section Brunnei. Features include a hygrophanous, pale grayish brown to brown cap, notched, medium spaced, yellowish brown or grayish brown young gills, a cylindric or club-shaped, grayish white, fibrillose stem that becomes pale brown, an indistinct or radish-like or anise odor, growth under pine, and microscopic characters including broadly elliptic to nearly round spores.
Harrower(1) assigned a BC collection sequence 112 to Cortinarius clarobrunneus. Morphological correlation is desirable. Collections were examined from Finland, Sweden, and Slovakia, (Niskanen(12)).
Cap: 3.5-8cm across, bell-shaped to conic, later low convex with rounded umbo; strongly hygrophanous, pale grayish brown to brown; "often narrowly pellucid-striate"
Flesh: red-brown, later darker
Gills: "strongly to weakly emarginate" "medium spaced", "fairly thick, fairly broad to broad; yellowish brown, later brown, edge sometimes whitish", (Niskanen), medium spaced; grayish brown, later brown, (Knudsen)
Stem: 6-13 x 0.8-1.5cm, cylindric or clavate; grayish white fibrillose, becoming pale brown; mycelium whitish, (Niskanen)
Veil: universal veil "white to brownish white, often sparse, not forming a girdle" on the stem, (Niskanen)
Odor: indistinct or slightly raphanoid, sometimes pleasant and aniseed-like, (Niskanen)
Microscopic spores: spores 7-8.5 x 5-6.5 microns, broadly elliptic to nearly round, "fairly finely to moderately verrucose, somewhat more at the apex, weakly to moderately dextrinoid, somewhat dark, in KOH brown and slightly dark-coloured", "Typical for the species seems to be that the spores in one fruit body can be of very variable in size and form."; basidia 4-spored, 29-40 x 7.5-10 microns, in Melzer''s reagent olivaceous brownish, in KOH colorless to olivaceous brown, "often with granulose content"; gill edge mostly fertile, marginal cells 13-25 x 5.5-9 microns, in Melzer''s reagent umber, "mostly with extra-cellular, amorphous, umber substance", "in KOH without extracellular substance" and fairly colorless to olivaceous brown; gill trama hyphae: in Melzer''s reagent and KOH "pale olivaceous, smooth to very finely zebra-striped encrusted, seldom with some spots"; cap cuticle: epicutis with upper hyphae of 3-8 microns, sepia in Melzer''s reagent and KOH, granulose, very finely zebra-striped encrusted and small-spotted, "wider lower hyphae present, but not distinct, pale"; hypoderm "present, but fairly poorly differentiated", hyphae of the hypoderm 30-60 x 20-30 microns, light coloured in Melzer''s reagent and KOH; clamp connections present, (Niskanen), spores 7-8.5 x 5.5-6 microns, nearly round to broadly elliptic, "moderately verrucose, more strongly at apex, weakly dextrinoid to dextrinoid, somewhat dark"; "gill trama hyphae not or very finely zebra-striate incrusted, seldom spot-like incrusted", (Knudsen)
Habitat / Range
in dry to dryish Pinus (pine) forests, common (Niskanen(12) for northern Europe), in dry forests, often in sandy Pinus (pine) heathland, but also in mesic conifer forests, fall, (Knudsen(1) who also say it is mainly with Pinus), (Knudsen)
Similar Species
Cortinarius neofurvolaesus has longer, ovoidly ellipsoid spores and dark, sordid brown exsiccata, (Niskanen(12)). Cortinarius anisatus has the same pleasant aniseed smell as some fruit bodies of Cortinarius clarobrunneus, but its smell is usually stronger, the sparse, white universal veil forms a sock-like sheath on the stem when young, the spores are ovoid, and the species grows with spruce, (Niskanen(12)). See also the closely related Cortinarius clarisordidus and the SIMILAR section of Cortinarius brunneus, and Cortinarius bovinus.
