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Species Information
Summary: Subgenus Dermocybe. Features include dry, dull yellowish olive to dull olive-brown cap, olivaceous flesh; adnexed, broad gills that are olive to olive-brown; dull yellow to olive or olive brown stem; growth among Sphagnum; dark brown to fuscous olive KOH reaction on cap and dark brown KOH reaction on gills; and microscopic characters. Note that the Breitenbach(5) description gives ocher-brown to reddish brown cap surface and flesh. Cortinarius tubarius var. luteofolius has young gills distinctly yellow and stipe apex yellow.
Cortinarius tubarius in North America is primarily an eastern species (Ammirati(9)). Harrower(1) assigned a BC collection sequence 91 to Cortinarius tubarius. Morphological correlation is desirable. It is also found in Europe including Switzerland (Breitenbach(5)).
Cap: 2.5-5cm across, obtusely bell-shaped becoming flat or flat-umbonate; dull yellowish olive (near "Isabella color") when young, becoming dull olive-brown ("tawny olive") or duller; "dry, appressed-fibrillose", margin lacerate when old, "sometimes sulcate-striate", (Ammirati), 1.5-5cm across, conic to hemispheric when young, later convex to flat and often with low, obtuse umbo, "margin incurved for a long time, even, acute"; ocher brown to reddish brown; "finely radially fibrillose to tomentose, sometimes slightly appressed-squamose when old", (Breitenbach)
Flesh: in cap olivaceous (more or less "Isabella color"); in stem colored as in cap, darkening to olive-brown in base, (Ammirati), thin; light ocher to reddish brown, (Breitenbach)
Gills: "adnexed, broad, close to subdistant"; at first dull light yellowish green ("reed yellow") to dull yellowish olive ("Isabella color") "becoming dingy dark yellow-brown to dull fulvous", (Ammirati), notched and narrowly attached, broad, 38-44 gills reaching stem, 3-6 subgills between neighboring gills; "olive to yellow-olive when young, later olive-brown"; "edges slightly crenate, in part paler than the faces", (Breitenbach)
Stem: 6-14cm x 0.6-1.2cm, equal; "dull yellow and not overlaid by a distinctly colored layer of fibrils", apex colored as young gills, when old stem between dull yellowish olive ("Isabella color") and dull olive-brown ("tawny olive") lower down; appressed-fibrillose, (Ammirati), 5-8cm x 0.3-0.7cm, cylindric, "stiff, flexible, solid when young, hollow when old"; "cream-yellow with an olive tint when young", later increasingly olive brown to reddish brown; "finely fibrillose over the entire length, base sometimes white-tomentose", (Breitenbach)
Odor: slightly grass-like (Breitenbach)
Taste: mild, rather unpleasant, (Breitenbach)
Microscopic spores: spores 9.2-11.5 x 5-6 microns, in side view elliptic, ornamented, pale brown to pale fulvous, (Ammirati), spores 7.5-12 x 4.5-6.5 microns, oval to elliptic, weakly verrucose, light reddish ocher; basidia 4-spored, 23-34 x 7.5-9.5 microns, clavate, clamp connection at base, basidia colorless in KOH, without brown pigments; septa with clamp connections, (Breitenbach)
Spore deposit: reddish brown (Breitenbach)
Habitat / Range
gregarious in Sphagnum under conifers, from mid-August to November, (Ammirati), usually gregarious on moors or in wet meadows, often among Sphagnum, mostly under Betula (birch), primarily montane; summer-fall, (Breitenbach for Switzerland), summer, fall
Similar Species
Cortinarius huronensis also grows in Sphagnum but KOH gives a reddish to reddish brown reaction on the cap surface, (Ammirati(9)), Cortinarius huronensis var. huronensis "also occurs on moors and has spores with similar dimensions"(7.6-13 x 5-7.2 microns) but has sulphur yellow gills when young and dark hazel brown to dark red-brown cap, and KOH on gills give brown-red reaction, (Breitenbach), Cortinarius huronensis var. olivaceus grows in similar habitat, but preferentially with Pinus (pine), cap is olive-brown rather than ocher-brown, KOH on gills gives brown-red reaction, spores are smaller (6.7-10.5 x 4-5.7 microns), and some basidia have yellow-brown contents in KOH, (Breitenbach); Cortinarius chrysolitus (also with Sphagnum) has dull light green young gills (Ammirati). See also SIMILAR section of Cortinarius olivaceopictus.
Ammirati(9) (as Dermocybe tubaria) (colors individually in double quotation marks from Ridgway(1)), Breitenbach(5)*, Harrower(1), Buczacki(1)* References for the fungi
