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Species Information
Summary: Subgenus Telamonia Section Verni. Features include 1) small size, 2) a hygrophanous blackish brown cap that dries reddish brown with a dark brown center, 3) light brownish gills that become dingy rust-brown, 4) a slender stem that is longitudinally whitish-fibrillose on a light pink-violet background, reddening on its lower third when bruised, 5) fruiting starting in April, and 6) microscopic characters including coarsely verrucose spores. The description is derived from Breitenbach(5). Cortinarius erythrinus Fr. sensu Ricken is considered a synonym, although Arnold(1993) retained the epithet C. erythrinus, (Breitenbach(5)).
DNA sequencing indicates its presence in BC (Harrower(1)). It is found in Europe, North America, and North Africa, (Breitenbach(5)).
Cap: 1.5-3.5(5)cm across, hemispheric to conic becoming conic to bell-shaped, eventually flat with prominent umbo, "margin incurved for a long time, acute"; hygrophanous, black-brown drying reddish brown with dark brown center, silvery from fine veil fibrils when young; dry, dull, margin spit when old
Flesh: thin; whitish, dark brown under cap surface and above gills
Gills: "notched and relatively broadly attached and sometimes subdecurrent as a streak", broad, 26-35 reaching stem, 1-4 subgills between neighboring gills; light brown becoming dingy rust-brown; "edges smooth, somewhat whitish in places"
Stem: 3-6cm x 0.25-0.6cm, cylindric, fragile, solid; "longitudinally whitish-fibrillose on a light pink-violet background", sometimes indistinctly circumcinct [circumferentially banded], "reddening on the lower third when bruised"; smooth, dull
Odor: "weak, pleasantly sweetish"
Taste: "mild, pleasant, somewhat astringent after being chewed a rather long time"
Microscopic spores: spores 6.9-8.5 x 4.8-6 microns, broadly elliptic, strongly (coarsely) verrucose, dark ocher; basidia 4-spored, 25-40 x 8-9 microns, clavate, with basal clamp connection; no pleurocystidia, marginal cells 20-28 x 7.5-13 microns, clavate to pyriform; some septa with clamp connections
Spore deposit: umber brown
Habitat / Range
usually gregarious or in troops in coniferous and hardwood forests of hills and mountainous areas, at the edges of forests or in hedges; usually from April onward, (Breitenbach), spring
Similar Species
Cortinarius erythrinus as reported in the Pacific Northwest could be the same species (see that entry).
