Summary:
Subgenus Telamonia Section Helvelloides. There is no good clear evidence that this species occurs in the Pacific Northwest unless Cortinarius helodes is a synonym of Cortinarius helvelloides. Features include 1) a small hygrophanous cap that is dingy ocher brown with an olive tint, drying yellow-brown, covered with an ocher-yellow woolly veil especially when young that forms fibrillose scales and hanging remnants from the cap margin, 2) broad distant gills that are violet-brown when young, 3) a stem that is often lilac-tinted at top (inside and on surface), belted from the ocher yellow veil on a pale background, often reddening at the base, 4) mild odor and taste, 5) growth under alder on marshy land, and 6) microscopic characters.

Cap:
1-2.2(3)cm across, conic when young, later bell-shaped to convex, flat with a +/- distinct umbo when old, margin even; hygrophanous, dingy ocher brown "with an olive tint when moist, yellow-brown when dry", covered with an ocher yellow woolly veil especially when young; "dull, finely fibrillose-tomentose to squamulose", margin hung with ocher yellow veil remnants, (Breitenbach), 1-3cm across, hemispheric to flatly conic, twisted; "olivaceous, olive-green/brown"; covered with yellow scales and fibers, (Moser)

Flesh:
thin; light to dark brown

Gills:
broadly attached, broad, thick, 18-22 gills reaching stem, 3 subgills between neighboring gills; violet-brown becoming purple-brown to umber brown; edges smooth, (Breitenbach), broadly adnate to notched, fairly thick, about 0.2cm broad, sometimes anastomosed at base, 20-25 reaching the stem, 1 subgill between neighboring gills; at first dark purplish gray, gray-purple with age, and finally gray-brown or olive rusty, edges entire, (Moser(13))

Stem:
3-6cm x 0.2-0.3cm, cylindric, hollow, flexible; villose to circumcinct [circumferentially banded] to almost annulate "from the yellow veil on a pale background", becoming bald and brown when old, "apex often with a lilac tint, base often reddening", (Breitenbach), "same colour as cap, almost ringed with yellow veil, apex sometimes violaceous, base foxy-red", (Moser(1)), 3-7cm x 0.15-0.4cm, base often attenuated, upper part colored as cap, apex sometimes showing dark purplish tints, lower half often red-brown ("English red"), brun d''ombre [probably umber brown] with age, with yellow velar fibrils below the cortina, (Moser(13))

Veil:
cap covered with ocher yellow woolly veil especially when young; ocher yellow veil remnants on cap margin, (Breitenbach)

Odor:
"faint, not distinctive", (Breitenbach), without characteristic odor (Moser(13))

Taste:
"mild, insipid", (Breitenbach), mild (Moser(13))

Microscopic spores:
spores 8-10.3 x 5-6.3 microns, elliptic to slightly amygdaliform [almond-shaped], "weakly to moderately verrucose, light yellow"; basidia 4-spored, 27-36 x 8.5-10 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; no pleurocystidia, marginal cells 23-35 x 7-10 microns, cylindric to clavate; septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), spores 8.5-10.5 x 5-6 microns, (Moser(1)), spores (8)8.5-10.6(13) x 5.3-6.5 microns, broadly elliptic, warty; basidia 4-spored, 30-34 x 8-9 microns, clavate; with or without columnar cheilocystidia 70-120 x 7-15 microns, often segmented, but not consistently present in all collections; subhymenial hyphae 3-5 microns, gill trama hyphae 6-12 microns, 15-17 microns in the middle layer, with yellowish walls, slightly encrusted, with clamp connections; epicuticular hyphae 7-12 microns, recumbent, brown-walled, with granular encrustations, with clamp connections; hypocutis hyphae swollen, 15-30 microns wide, with brown encrusted walls; velar hyphae 5-12(15) microns thick, yellow-brown walled, encrusted with granulations or small plaques, with clamp connections, (Moser(13))

Spore deposit:
red-brown (Buczacki)

Notes:
Harrower(1) assigns to C. helvelloides the sequence # 121 from BC FJ039707, but Liimatainen(11) assign this sequence to the closely related Cortinarius helodes M.M. Moser, Matheny & Daniele, whose holotype is from Wyoming. C. helvelloides is also found in Europe including Switzerland, (Breitenbach(5)) and Finland (neotype). There is a Washington collection at the University of Michigan, but Moser(13) said it was another species. According to D. Miller, pers. comm., Harrower # 127 is 4 bases and 2 indels from C. helvelloides. Morphological correlation is desirable. Moser(13) examined collections from MI (several by A.H. Sm. including holotype material for Cortinarius lacorum which Moser assigned to Cortinarius helvelloides). Moser(13) also examined collections from ON, Austria, France, Sweden, and Switzerland.

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