Summary:
Subgenus Telamonia Section Ionosmi. There is no good evidence that exactly this species occurs in the Pacific Northwest. The most distinctive feature is the odor like violets (Viola); other features include a hygrophanous, red-brown to umber brown cap that has veil remnants attached to the margin when young, notched, broad gills that are light brown when young, a stem that is white-fibrillose becoming bald and brownish, and microscopic characters.

Cap:
2.5-4(8)cm across, hemispheric when young, later convex to flat, with obtuse umbo and geniculate margin; hygrophanous, dark red-brown to umber brown, drying ocher brown to gray-brown; "smooth to finely appressed radially fibrillose", "margin even to somewhat split, with remains of the white veil attached when young", (Breitenbach), 2-7cm across, red-brown drying gray-ocher-brown, hazel-brown; "young margin with fibrous covering of white veil", (Moser)

Flesh:
thin; light to dark brown, (Breitenbach)

Gills:
"notched and narrowly attached", broad, 38-47 gills reaching stem, 3-7 subgills between neighboring gills; light brown becoming dark red-brown; edges smooth, (Breitenbach), crowded to distant; gray-brown, (Moser)

Stem:
4-7(10)cm x 0.4-0.8cm, cylindric, sometimes slightly clavate, "hollow, fragile"; "white-fibrillose over the entire length from the veil when young", later becoming bald and brownish, with white, +/- belt-like veil remnants in places, (Breitenbach), 4-8cm x 0.5-1cm, cylindric to clavate, whitish when young "with fibrous veil covering, then lower browning and sometimes with veil belts", (Moser)

Veil:
white remnants at cap margin, white covering on stem which becomes bald or with veil belts (Breitenbach)

Odor:
pleasantly like Viola odorata, (Breitenbach), strong of violets or violet roots (Moser)

Taste:
mild (Breitenbach)

Microscopic spores:
spores 8-11 x 4.9-6.2 microns, elliptic to weakly amygdaliform [almond-shaped], "moderately verrucose, ocher yellow"; basidia 4-spored, 28-37 x 7.5-10 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; no pleurocystidia, marginal cells 20-35 x 7-11 microns, cylindric to clavate; septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach), spores 8-9.5 x 4.8-5.5 microns, (Moser)

Notes:
In the Harrower(1) molecular study of BC Cortinarius, #151 (FJ039677) was assigned to Cortinarius ionosmus, but Liimatainen(11) reassigned it to the related Cortinarius boreasensis. Morphological characters should be correlated. C. ionosmus is found in Europe including Switzerland (Breitenbach(5)) and Austria (holotype).

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