Summary:
Subgenus Telamonia Section Saturnini. Characteristic are violaceous colors, white veil patches at the cap margin, a firm stem, and growth often in culturally influenced areas (Brandrud).

Cap:
3-8cm across, bell-shaped, expanded, sometimes gibbous; hygrophanous, "pale-watery-brown when moist, ochraceous-gray-buff when dry"; bald, silky around the margin, (Kauffman(3)), 3-8cm across, (hemi-)spheric (to bell-shaped), then flat-convex, "usually with a low umbo, often irregular"; hygrophanous, dark yellowish brown to chestnut brown, sometimes with a violet tinge, "drying streakwise brownish yellow with dark radial spots"; "finely silver-shiny, sometimes viscid", often with a circular zone caused by veil remnants near cap margin, (Brandrud), 3-7cm across, when young white silky at margin, otherwise dark chestnut-brown, (Moser)

Flesh:
thin; violaceous then pallid, (Kauffman(3)), brown in cap, pale grayish marbled in stem, usually violaceous in top of stem, yellowish-brown to grayish brown from base upward when old, (Brandrud)

Gills:
"adnate, then emarginate, adnexed, close, moderately broad", thin; "violaceous or purplish-tinged at first, then ashy-cinnamon"; the edge entire, (Kauffman(3)), rather crowded; pale yellowish-brown to grayish brown, often with a violet tinge; edge whitish and sometimes serrulate [finely toothed], (Brandrud), scarcely crowded, thickish; violaceous/cinnamon-brown, (Moser), notched and broadly attached, 50-60 reaching stem, 1-3 subgills between neighboring gills, gills broad, thickish; somewhat violet to pale brownish yellow when young, later ocher brown, edges whitish; edges smooth, (Breitenbach)

Stem:
4-6cm x 0.6-1.2cm, subequal [more or less equal], widening slightly downward, round in cross-section or compressed, stuffed; violaceous in upper part, whitish in lower part; fibrillose, becoming bald and shining when dry, (Kauffman(3)), 4-10cm x 0.5-1.2cm, equal or club-shaped at base (up to 2cm wide), often curved, firm; "at first white and shiny, then ochraceous yellow", grayish brown at base, veil "white, sparse, silky, forming a sheath or a ring zone, fibrillose with age", (Brandrud), equal, violaceous, lower part whitish "and sometimes almost bootedly ringed", (Moser)

Veil:
cortina whitish (Kauffman(3)), veil "white, sparse, silky, forming a sheath or a ring zone, fibrillose with age", (Brandrud)

Odor:
mild (Kauffman(3)), indistinct (Brandrud)

Taste:
mild (Kauffman(3))

Microscopic spores:
spores 7-8 x 5-6 microns, elliptic, slightly rough, (Kauffman(3)), spores 7-9 x 4-5 microns, distinctly verrucose; gill edge "with numerous clavate to spheropedunculate sterile cells"; cap cuticle with a thin epicutis, hyphae 2-4(6) microns wide, up to 6-10 microns wide in lower part, more or less colorless, hypodermium well developed, hyphae 8-30(35) microns wide, "with brown-yellow thick-wall pigment, mainly in upper part", (Brandrud), spores 10-12 x 5-6 microns (Moser), spores 8.7-12.9 x 6.2-7.5 microns, elliptic to almond-shaped, moderately to strongly verrucose, light ocher-yellow; basidia 4-spored, 33-40 x 11-13 microns, clavate, with basal clamp connection; no pleurocystidia, marginal cells 15-25 x 4-8 microns, cylindric to clavate; cap cuticle of periclinal hyphae 4-10 microns wide, colorless to light yellow and encrusted, septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach)

Spore deposit:
red-brown (Breitenbach)

Notes:
Kauffman reported this species from CO and also found it in OR. Trudell(3) made an identification in the broad sense from Washington, and there are collections from BC by Oluna Ceska at the University of British Columbia. Liimatainen(11) cite a neotype from Sweden. A collection from WA shows only a one base pair difference from this neotype.

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