Summary:
Subgenus Telamonia Section Tortuosi. Confirmation and morphological correlation is desirable. Features include hygrophanous chestnut brown cap that is edged by whitish veil when young; reddish brown young gills; pale violet, white-fibrillose young stem; mild odor and taste, and growth in coniferous forests primarily among Sphagnum. The description is derived from Breitenbach(5).

Cap:
2-5cm across, hemispheric when young, later bell-shaped to convex, eventually flat "with a slight umbo and an often geniculate margin", margin even, acute; hygrophanous, dark red-brown to chestnut-brown with a gray-violet tinge, drying ocher-brown; smooth, dull, margin "edged by the whitish veil when young"

Flesh:
thin; "light to dark brown"

Gills:
broadly attached, broad, 32-44 reaching stem, 3 subgills between neighboring gills; reddish brown when young, sometimes with a lilac tinge, later chestnut brown; "edges smooth, whitish in places"

Stem:
5-10cm x 0.5-1cm, cylindric, "sometimes tapered toward the base, often curved, sometimes twisted, fragile"; "pale violet and white-fibrillose when young", becoming bald "and remaining lilac only on the upper third, light brown and encircled with white velar bands below"

Veil:
whitish veil on edge of cap, white veil bands on lower stem

Odor:
"weak, not distinctive"

Microscopic spores:
spores 7.6-10.2 x 4.7-5.9 microns; elliptic, moderately verrucose, light ocher; basidia 4-spored, 30-35 x 8-9 microns, narrowly clavate, with basal clamp connection; no pleurocystidia, marginal cells clavate with end cells 16-36 x 9-12.5 microns; septa with clamp connections

Notes:
Harrower(1) assigned a BC collection sequence 164 to Cortinarius tortuosus but according to D. Miller, pers. comm. it matches more closely with Cortinarius turibulosus. C. tortuosus is also found in Europe including Switzerland (Breitenbach(5)). The Liimatainen(11) phylogenetic tree shows a sequence KX964406 named C. tortuosus from WA, but matches C. tortuosus AY669669, and a type is not included. Morphological correlation is desirable.

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