Part 11

Spores: medium-sized, ellipsoid, smooth, deep yellow-brown and rarely greater than 10 µm in length (8-10 × 5-6 µm).

Marginal cystidia: numerous lance-shaped or spindle-shaped.

Facial cystidia: scattered and similar in shape to marginal cystidia.

Habitat & Distribution: Found on heaths and in mixed woods, particularly where birch has or is now growing, or even accompanying solitary birch trees.

General Information: This fungus is easily recognisable by the strongly inrolled, woolly margin of the cap and yellow-brown gills which are easily separable from the cap-flesh. P. rubicundulus P. D. Orton is similar but grows under alder and has yellow gills unchanging when handled and dark scales on the cap. P. atrotomentosus (Fries) Fries and P. panuoides (Fries) Fries both grow on coniferous wood and have smaller spores; the former is recognised by the dark brown to almost black shaggy stem and the latter by the shell-shaped cap devoid almost completely of a stem.

Illustrations: F 41c; Hvass 189; LH 185; NB 115⁸; WD 70².

~Cortinarius pseudosalor~ J. Lange

Cap: width 60-125 mm. Stem: width 15-25 mm; length up to 180 mm.

Description:

Cap: bell-shaped or bluntly conical only slightly expanding with maturity, smooth or wrinkled at centre but often furrowed at the margin, slimy, brown with a distinct olive flush when in fresh condition and becoming ochraceous brown and shiny when dry.

Stem: usually swollen to some degree about the middle, slimy particularly towards the base, whitish throughout when young except for a faint amethyst or violaceous flush in the lower part; as the slime dries the stem becomes shiny and the outer surface breaks up into fibrillose scales or scaly, irregular ring-zones.

Flesh: lacking distinct smell, white with ochraceous flush in the cap, white in the stem, thick and soft in the cap but fibrous in the stem.

Gills: adnate, broad, rather thick, frequently veined and distant, ochraceous brown and finally deep rust-brown.

Spore-print: rust-colour.

Spores: long, slightly almond-shaped in side view, finely warted throughout and not less than 12 µm in length (13-14 × 7-8 µm).

Marginal cystidia: ellipsoid or club-shaped, hardly different from the surrounding undeveloped basidia.

Facial cystidia: absent.

Habitat & Distribution: Found on the ground in copses and woods especially those containing beech.

General Information: Recognised by the conical, grooved cap and the slimy spindle-shaped stem with a distinct violaceous flush; this fungus is often misnamed C. elatior Fries but this is a much less common fungus. There are several closely related fungi, but these grow with other tree-species and need much more experience to distinguish one from the other. C. pinicola P. D. Orton is one such species growing in the litter under Pinus sylvestris, Scots Pine; this species is fairly common in the remnant pine woods of Northern Scotland. The large size, sticky or glutinous cap and stem indicate that this fungus belongs to Cortinarius, subgenus Myxacium.

Illustrations: Hvass 145; LH 162; NB 119; WD 60¹.

General notes on Cortinarii

The genus Cortinarius is the largest genus of agarics in the British Isles, indeed in Europe and North America--perhaps in the world. It includes some of our most beautiful agarics, yet it is one of the least satisfying to the mycologist because of the difficulties experienced in identifying collections--partly because many species are so seldom seen.

Cortinarius contains just under two hundred and fifty recognisable British species, although recent research has shown that many more are yet to be described from this country as new to science. Except for some very characteristic species the individual members within the genus Cortinarius are often very difficult to separate one from the other; however, Cortinarius is one of our least difficult genera to recognise in the field owing to the presence when mature of rust-coloured gills and a cobwebby veil which extends from the margin of the cap to the stem. This structure is termed a cortina (Fig. 14) and in young specimens covers the gills with delicate filaments. As the cap expands the cottony or cobwebby filaments are stretched and either disappear entirely or may collapse to form a ring-like zone of filaments on the stem. In some species a second completely enveloping veil is also found, and this veil is viscid in one distinct group of which C. pseudosalor already described is a member. The gills in the genus are variable in colour when young although constant for a single species; they may be lilaceous purple, orange, brown, red, yellow-ochraceous or tan, but ultimately in all members at maturity they become rust-colour. The spores under the microscope are richly coloured, yellow to red-brown and are frequently strongly warted; in mass they are rust-brown and this character coupled with the presence of the cobweb-like veil characterises the genus.

Within the genus Cortinarius there is a wide range of characters varying from species with distinctly sticky caps and stems, some with sticky caps and dry stems to those with both dry caps and stems. A few species are very large and fleshy whilst others are quite slender and many of the latter rapidly change colour on drying out and are then said to be hygrophanous. However, although there is such a large spectrum of characters in a single genus the species all have in common the cortina and rust-coloured gills, the latter often appearing as if powdered with rusty dust.

Utilising the characters mentioned above this very large genus can be split into the following six sections, called by the mycologist subgenera:

a. Large to medium sized fleshy agarics with viscid caps and stems--Myxacium

b. Large, fleshy agarics with viscid or tacky caps when fresh but dry stems--Phlegmacium

c. Large to medium sized agarics with dry, scaly or humid caps and dry stems which if orange tawny are robust--Cortinarius