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.

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)

Notes:
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)).

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Cortinarius brunneus var. clarobrunneus H. Lindstr. & Melot