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Species Information
Summary: Subgenus Dermocybe. Features include maroon-red to reddish-brown dry cap, deep red gills, and yellowish dry stem. The description is derived from Ammirati(7) except where noted. Cortinarius fervidus is related or the same species: it does not fluoresce when subjected to ultraviolet light, is rare, and possibly occurs with larch in the North Cascades, but more work is needed (Michelle Seidl pers. comm.). Cortinarius smithii is common in the Pacific Northwest along the coast.
It is found in BC, WA, OR, AK, and CA, and also in the mountains of the interior, (Ammirati(7)).
Cap: 3-8cm across, "broadly convex, becoming expanded, more or less umbonate", margin usually decurved [downcurved]; evenly dark red to rich red or dark mahogany red; moist to dry, innately silky becoming appressed-fibrillose at maturity, often cracking radially when old
Flesh: rather thin, firm; buff, with reddish tints near cap surface, olive-brownish in cap near stem, light yellowish olive in stem becoming sordid brownish when old
Gills: adnate to adnexed or (according to Arora) notched, subdistant to distant or appearing close in small caps, broad, equal; deep purplish red to deep red, sometimes with brighter red edges, "with a changeable or metallic sheen when viewed at different angles", becoming more or less rusty when old
Stem: 4-11cm x 0.6-1.5(3)cm, equal or sometimes club-shaped to ventricose [thicker in middle], evenly yellow to dull yellow or dull ochraceous; moist to dry, with a coating of yellowish fibrils, mycelium around base and in soil ochraceous to ocher-yellow or tinged reddish to vinaceous red
Veil: cortina scanty, dull yellow, light ochraceous or yellow-buff, (Ammirati(7)), cortina scanty, yellowish, disappearing or leaving a few hairs on upper stem (Arora)
Odor: none or not distinctive (Ammirati(7)), mild or slightly radish-like (Arora)
Taste: none or not distinctive
Microscopic spores: spores (6)6.5-8(9) x 4-5(5.5) microns, elliptic in face view and side view, verruculose [minutely rough], pale brownish with darker brown ornamentation; basidia 4-spored, 24-31 x 6.5-7.5 microns, clavate, thin-walled, colorless or reddish to pinkish, some containing colorless or reddish granules; pleurocystidia absent, cheilocystidia apparently absent; clamp connections present throughout fruiting body
Spore deposit: rusty brown (Arora)
Habitat / Range
cespitose [in tufts] to gregarious or scattered under conifers or in mixed woods, (Ammirati), late summer and fall (Miller)
Similar Species
Cortinarius ominosus (long known in the Pacific Northwest as Cortinarius semisanguineus) can be similar. The cap colour of C. ominosus ranges from yellow brown to dark brown to red-brown. The reddish capped variants are best distinguished from C. smithii by fluorescence in 360-nm ultraviolet light: the lower stem of C. ominosus glows a rich orange-yellow, (Trudell(4)). See also SIMILAR section of Cortinarius birkebakii, and Cortinarius trappei.
