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Species Information
Summary: Subgenus Dermocybe. Features include small to medium size, blood red to dark red color of cap, flesh, gills, and stem, dry surface of cap and stem, ochraceous to orange-ochraceous mycelium over stem base, fleeting cortina tinged red, rusty-brown spore deposit, and rough spores. Cortinarius neosanguineus has been known as C. sanguineus in western North America, but the known range of the latter species is eastern North America from Michigan to Newfoundland, as well as Europe.
C. neosanguineus has been found at least BC, WA, OR, known from CA, (Niskanen), described from northern California by Ammirati(7) and from California by Arora(1).
Cap: 1.8-4.5cm across, somewhat obtuse to convex or flat, disc more or less depressed, margin incurved to decurved [downcurved]; rich red to deep red or tinted with colors of the margin, on margin rich red or duller red, sometimes streaked deep red to fuscous red; appressed fibrillose to minutely scaly, sometimes radially cracked on margin, (Ammirati), (1)2-5cm, obtusely bell-shaped becoming convex to flat or broadly umbonate; evenly deep carmine red to blood red or deep red; "dry, silky or finely fibrillose", (Arora)
Flesh: in cap watery deep red, where faded or beneath cap surface lighter red, in stem rich red throughout or deeper red in lower part, (Ammirati), thin, blood red to reddish purple, (Arora)
Gills: "sinuate to broadly depressed with a more or less decurrent tooth, close, more or less ventricose when mature"; at first rich red, becoming shaded rusty brown to dusky brown from spores; edges uneven, (Ammirati), adnate to adnexed, close; blood-red to dark blood-red, but when old dusted with cinnamon-colored spores, (Arora)
Stem: 4.5-8.5cm x 0.3-0.9cm, equal or base slightly enlarged, stem stuffed to narrowly hollow; rich red or duller red, sometimes with watery deep red streaks, base or lower third dull ochraceous "or the ochraceous coloration slightly tinted orange to reddish"; fibrillose, shiny, (Ammirati), 4-10cm x 0.3-0.5(0.8)cm, equal or slightly wider below; "same color as cap or slightly darker"; dry, "base with yellowish to yellow-orange or sometimes pinkish downy hairs", (Arora)
Veil: cortina "red or at least tinged red, often scanty and disappearing", or may leave a few hairs on upper stem, (Arora)
Odor: somewhat fragrant, mild or radish-like, (Ammirati), mild or faintly pleasant (Arora)
Taste: mild to radish-like (Ammirati)
Microscopic spores: spores 6.5-9(10) x (3.5)4.5-5(5.5) microns, elliptic to ovate, verruculose [minutely rough]; basidia 4-spored, 15-25 x 6-7.5 microns, broadly clavate, clavate, or more or less ventricose, colorless to pinkish; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia 12-23 x 7-10 microns, clavate to broadly clavate, thin-walled, color similar to basidia; clamp connections present throughout the fruiting body, (Ammirati), spores 6-9 x 4-6 microns, elliptic, minutely roughened, (Arora), spores 7-8.5(9) x 4.5-5.2(5.5) microns, average 7.5-8.1 x 4.8-5.0 microns, slightly amygdaloid [almond-shaped] to elliptic, "moderately verrucose, weakly to moderately dextrinoid"; basidia 4-spored, 24-32 x 6-9 microns, often with granulose content, in KOH colorless or aniline red; marginal cells 10.5-22 x 8-12 microns, clavate to balloon-shaped; clamp connections present, (Niskanen)
Spore deposit: rusty brown to reddish brown (Arora)
Habitat / Range
gregarious in mixed woods, mixed conifers, and stands of Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas-fir), (Ammirati), single to widely scattered or in small groups, mainly under conifers and often in beds of moss, (Arora), in coniferous forests (Pseudotsuga, Tsuga, Abies, Picea), September to November, (Niskanen)
Similar Species
Cortinarius birkebakii has a similar description but was distinct with DNA study - the description of cap color is "blackish red at centre, in other parts brownish red". Cortinarius sanguineus, found in eastern North America and Europe, can be similar, but 1) cap is often wider in relation to stem, 2) cap is a bit lighter (rich red to deep red as opposed to vivid red to slightly pinker overall or with dark purplish red disc), 3) there is less aniline-red pigment in gill preparations in KOH, 4) basal mycelium dull ochraceous as opposed to vinaceous ochraceous to reddish yellow, 5) dried specimens are somewhat redder with dried basal also somewhat redder (Niskanen). Cortinarius californicus is somewhat similar, but cap of C. neosanguineus not hygrophanous. Watch also for Cortinarius sierraensis, a rare species found in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which is distinguished from Cortinarius neosanguineus by brownish orange to brownish red-orange cap of C. sierraensis, with spores 7.5-9 x 5-.5.5(5.8) microns, average 8.0-8.4 x 5.2-5.3 microns.
