Summary:
Subgenus Telamonia Section Hydrocybe. Brandrud(1) says "easily identified by the glabrous, pale cap, the pure white, shiny, cartilaginous and often deep radicating stem, and the sparse veil". The stem may become brown in its upper part, and the cap is hygrophanous and brown. Gills are crowded and pale yellowish brown to milky-coffee then rust brown. Var. raphanicus differs primarily by its radish-like odor (Breitenbach(5)). Stuntz(5) says "not a very distinctive species; its salient feature is the satiny, white, tapering stem. Most other species of Hygrophanus with brown cap and pallid or white stem have the cap decidedly darker in color" ("Hygrophanus" underlined).

Cap:
3-7cm across, (hemi-)spheric to conic, then convex to flat-convex, sometimes with low umbo; strongly hygrophanous, pale leather-brown to dark yellowish brown, at center with red-brown tinge, pale yellowish white when dry; smooth, shiny, (Brandrud), 3-8cm across, domed-umbonate; pale reddish-brown or clay-brown, margin white silky when young, paling markedly, (Moser), 4-10cm across, convex or obtuse, not umbonate; hygrophanous, "watery cinnamon brown with a flush of reddish brown at the center when moist, fading to pale buff or very pale tannish buff upon drying"; bald, (Stuntz)

Flesh:
white to pale yellowish, yellowish brown in cap, (Brandrud), colored as cap (Stuntz)

Gills:
rather crowded, broad with age; pale yellowish brown, edge paler; edge sometimes serrulate [finely toothed], (Brandrud), broadly attached, broad, 35-40 reaching stem, 3 subgills between neighboring gills; "light ocher when young", later rust-brown; edges crenulate, (Breitenbach), closely packed; milky-coffee, then rust-brown; finely toothed, (Moser), pallid when young (Stuntz)

Stem:
5-12cm x 0.6-1.4cm, cylindric to fusiform [spindle-shaped], base tapering and often radicating-flexuose [rooting and curved both ways], hard; white or whitish; shiny-fibrillose, (Brandrud), 7-9cm x 0.8-1.2cm, "slightly clavate to fusiform and usually rooting, solid, flexible"; "surface white-fibrillose from the veil from the base upward, apex brownish", (Breitenbach), almost always spindle-shaped; white, pale; smooth, (Moser), 4-12cm x 0.6-1.6cm, usually spindle-shaped [swollen above the base and narrowing upward and downward from swelling] or equal and narrowing only at base, hollow; white; with some fibrils from cortina at first, becoming bald and satiny, (Stuntz)

Veil:
"white, sparse, in an appressed zone, then fibrillose and inconspicuous", (Brandrud), cortina present

Odor:
indistinct (Brandrud), not distinctive (Stuntz), nutty to radish when crushed (Phillips), radish-like in var. raphanicus (Moser), strongly radish-like in var. raphanicus, not striking and hot radish-like in var. duracinus, (Breitenbach)

Taste:
slight (Phillips), mild to slightly astringent (Breitenbach)

Microscopic spores:
spores 8-10 x 5-6 microns, elliptic to broadly elliptic, distinctly verrucose; gill edge with isolated, short, clavate sterile cells, (Brandrud), spores 7.4-11 x 5-6 microns, elliptic, "weakly to moderately verrucose, light ocher"; basidia 4-spored, 28-31 x 8-9 microns, cylindric to clavate, with basal clamp connection; marginal cells 22-40 x 4-7.5 microns, cylindric to clavate, no pleurocystidia; cap cuticle hyphae periclinal, 3-8 microns wide, with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), spores 7.5-11 x 4-6 microns (Moser, who describes also var. raphanicus with spores 9-11 x 5-6 microns)

Spore deposit:
rusty brown (Phillips)

Notes:
It is not uncommon in Washington (Stuntz(5)). There are collections from BC and YT at the University of British Columbia, from WA, WY, and Austria at the University of Washington, and from WA, OR, and AK at Oregon State University. Collections from these herbaria include var. raphanicus from BC and WY. Harrower(1) assigned a BC collection sequence 143 to Cortinarius duracinus; however, the spread of corresponding clade is about 1.5% and may contain more than one species, (D. Miller, pers. comm.). Phillips(1) gives the distribution of C. duracinus as northeastern North America west to MI, and CO. Breitenbach(5) and Brandrud(1) give this species for Europe.

EDIBILITY