Summary:
Subgenus Telamonia Section Rubricosi. Features include 1) a hygrophanous, dark red-brown cap that is finely white-scaly at least at the margin and has a conic umbo, 2) dark cinnamon to grayish brown young gills, 3) a cylindric stem that is grayish brown to reddish brown with a white fibrillose veil overlying, 4) growth under conifers, and 5) nearly round verrucose to nearly smooth spores measuring 5.5-7.5 x 4-6 microns. The descriptions are derived from that of Cortinarius hemitrichus var. americanus (Smith(12)) and from Knudsen(1).

Cap:
1.5-5cm across, bell-shaped to convex with acute umbo; hygrophanous, dark red-brown, drying pale grayish brown; finely white-scaly, at least at margin

Flesh:
pale greyish to ochraceous brown, darker downwards in stem

Gills:
adnate to depressed-adnate, moderately close, 41-46 reaching stem, 2-3 tiers of subgills, moderately broad (0.5-0.7cm), broadest near stem; dark cinnamon when young becoming ochraceous tawny, "intervenose at times, edges even, sometimes spotted or stained dark brown", (Smith), medium spaced; "ochraceous to greyish brown", (Knudsen)

Stem:
5-8cm x (0.4)0.6-1cm, equal, soon hollow; whitish becoming more brownish; sheathed in lower part with white veil that ends above in a median white fibrillose zone, (Smith), 4-9cm x 0.3-0.6cm, cylindric, "at base often tapering", stiff; white-fibrillose, from below light grayish brown to reddish brown, (Knudsen)

Veil:
universal veil forms a white sheath on stem, ending in a median fibrillose zone, (Smith), "veil abundant, white forming a protruding ring or floccose" but also "usually without a marked white band of veil on stem", (Knudsen)

Odor:
none (Smith), indistinct, (Knudsen)

Taste:
mild (Smith)

Microscopic spores:
spores 5.5-7.5 x 4-5.5 microns, broadly elliptic, nearly smooth, pale rusty brown; basidia 4-spored; pleurocystidia not seen, cheilocystidia scattered to clustered, 26-38 x 7-10 microns, clavate, thin-walled, colorless, (Smith), spores 6.5-7.5 x 5-6 microns, nearly round, coarsely verrucose, (Knudsen)

Notes:
Harrower(1) assigned a BC collection sequence 130 to Cortinarius comptulus. Morphological correlation is desirable. It is also found in Europe (Knudsen(1)). Cortinarius hemitrichus var. americanus was common in the Olympic Mts. of WA (Smith(12)).

EDIBILITY

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Cortinarius hemitrichus var. americanus A.H. Sm.