Summary:
Subgenus Telamonia Section Flexipedes. Features include 1) a hygrophanous, dark gray-brown cap, often with fine, distant, white fibrils when young, 2) a striate cap margin when moist, 3) broad and broadly attached gills that are light ocher becoming gray-brown, 4) a stem that is at first densely white-fibrillose, 5) a lemon balm odor when dry, 6) growth under hardwoods, and 7) microscopic characters. The description is derived from Breitenbach(5).

Cap:
1.5-3cm across, conic to bell-shaped when young, later flat and sometimes undulating, always more or less umbonate; hygrophanous, "dark gray-brown when moist, light ocher-brown when dry"; "often with distant, fine, white, hair-like fibrils when young and fresh", soon becoming bald and "at most remaining somewhat fibrillose-floccose only on the marginal zone, margin striate when moist

Flesh:
thin; beige to brown

Gills:
broadly attached, broad, 21-28 gills reaching stem, 3-5 subgills between neighboring gills; "light ocher when young, later gray-brown"; edges slightly crenate

Stem:
spores 4-6(7)cm x 0.3-0.5cm, cylindric, flexible, solid becoming hollow; "at first densely longitudinally dingy-white fibrillose on a brown background", later becoming bald and indistinctly belted or with an annular zone

Odor:
"pleasant, sour-sweetish and fruity, like lemon balm when dry, not markedly like rubbed Pelargonium leaves"

Taste:
"mild, spicy-fungoid"

Microscopic spores:
spores 7-10 x 4.9-6 microns, elliptic, moderately verrucose, light reddish ocher; basidia 4-spored, 25-31 x 7-9 microns, cylindric to clavate, with basal clamp connection; cystidia not seen; clamp connections present

Spore deposit:
rust-brown

Notes:
DNA sequencing indicates its presence in BC (Harrower(1)), but according to D. Miller, pers. comm., one of the sequences thus designated corresponds to Cortinarius fagetorum. Morphological correlation is desirable. Liimatainen(11) found that a BC collection matched the holotype of C. fagetorum. Cortinarius diasemospermus is also found in Europe including Switzerland (Breitenbach(5)).

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