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Species Information
Summary: Subgenus Myxacium. Features include small size, a viscid tawny cap with a paler margin, a viscid white stem, and bitter flesh and cap slime. Cortinarius vibratilis is common in Pacific Northwest conifer forests.
It has been found at least in BC (collections at Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria and University of British Columbia), WA (Ammirati(5)), and CA (Arora). Harrower(1) assigned a BC collection sequence 6 to Cortinarius vibratilis. Kauffman gives the distribution as New England to MN and southward, CO, ID and the northern Pacific States, and also in Europe, (Kauffman(3)).
Cap: 2-5cm across, convex, obtuse, gibbous; hygrophanous, yellow, ocher-yellow to fulvous-yellow, paler when dry; glutinous, bald, even, (Kauffman), 1.5-5cm across, broadly bell-shaped to convex to nearly flat; yellowish, tawny, fulvous, orange-brown, yellow-orange, or brown, "fading as it ages or dries (sometimes to pale tan)"; "smooth, viscid or slimy when moist", (Arora), 2-5cm across, hemispheric then convex to domed; slightly hygrophanous, orange, lighter when dry, darker when wet; glutinous, (Phillips), cap edge whitish from the remains of the veil (Breitenbach)
Flesh: thin except at disc, soft; white or whitish, (Kauffman), thin, whitish (Arora), whitish or with a touch of ocher (Phillips)
Gills: "adnate to slightly subdecurrent or submarginate", close, thin, rather narrow; pallid to pale-ochraceous, then pale-ochraceous-cinnamon, (Kauffman), "close, notched to adnate or slightly decurrent"; whitish becoming dull ocher or tawny then cinnamon brown, (Arora), adnate; pallid reddish ocher then more cinnamon, (Phillips)
Stem: 3-7cm x 0.4-1cm, variable in length, subclavate [somewhat club-shaped] or tapering either way, stuffed, soft; pure-white; often viscid only at the base, clothed when young by a glutinous, colorless universal veil, soon drying, (Kauffman), 3-7cm x 0.3-1cm at top, usually club-shaped below but sometimes equal; white; viscid or slimy when moist, but when old sometimes viscid only at base, smooth or nearly so, (Arora), 4-7cm x 0.4-1cm, often swollen at base, but sometimes tapering and appearing root-like; white discoloring orangy in places, sometimes showing a ring zone; glutinous, (Phillips)
Veil: cortina scanty, sometimes leaving a few hairs on stem, universal veil slimy, colorless, (Arora)
Odor: mild (Arora)
Taste: bitter cap surface and intensely bitter flesh (Kauffman), bitter, especially cap surface, which can usually be detected by pressing your tongue to the cap surface, (Arora)
Microscopic spores: spores 6-7.5 x 4-5 microns, elliptic, almost smooth, (Kauffman), spores 7-9 x 4-5 microns, elliptic, rough, (Arora), spores 6-8.4 x 4-5 microns, elliptic, rough, (Phillips), spores 6-7.8 x 4.2-5 microns, broadly elliptic, weakly verrucose, light yellow; basidia 4-spored, 22-31 x 7-8 microns, clavate, with basal clamp connection; no pleurocystidia, marginal cells 14-28 x 3.5-7 microns, cylindric to clavate; cap cuticle of periclinal to irregular hyphae or hyphal fragments 2-7 microns wide, colorless to yellow, septa with clamp connections, all gelatinized, (Breitenbach)
Spore deposit: rusty brown (Arora, Phillips)
Habitat / Range
humus in rich woods, in hardwood and coniferous forests, (Kauffman), single to widely scattered or in small groups, usually with conifers, but also "under manzanita, madrone, and huckleberry", (Arora), in coniferous and deciduous woods, (Phillips), fall (Buczacki)
Similar Species
Cortinarius causticus has only the cap skin bitter and spores are narrower (Moser, but note that Brandrud et al. (per Breitenbach(5)) give the spore width of C. causticus as 4.5-5 microns and the flesh of C. causticus can be mild or bitterish according to Breitenbach(5)). C. causticus has darker colors than C. vibratilis, (E. Harrower, via K. Luther), C. causticus has a distinct granular cap surface: when you lick it to check for bitter slime it feels pebbled like curling rink ice. The umbo also tends to be flattened and broad, the whole stature is more robust than C. vibratilis. (P. Kroeger, pers. comm.) |Cortinarius pluvius is very similar but is usually brighter orange to ocher-yellow in color, it is common on the far north CA coast, especially with shore pine, (Siegel), C. pluvius is smaller with a paler cap, less bitter flesh, a stem that is not white but more ocher-colored, and a preference for birch, (Breitenbach). |Cortinarius pluviorum is smaller with an iodoform odor, (Hansen) and a stem that is only sticky when damp as opposed to heavily viscid when damp, (Moser). |Cortinarius pluvialis is smaller with a paler cap, (Moser). |Cortinarius crystallinus has a very pale ocher cap and stem that is only sticky when damp as opposed to heavily viscid when damp, (key leads in Moser(1)). See also SIMILAR section of Cortinarius mucosus.
