Truffle Genus: Cortinarius

Cortinarius bigelowii basidiospore

Kingdom: Fungi Phylum: Basidiomycota Order: Agaricales Family: Cortinariaceae

Spore Characters

Distinguished from the symmetrical species of Hymenogaster and Destuntzia in being longitudinally asymmetric and having an oblique sterigmal attachment. Not separable from Thaxterogaster on the basis of spore characteristics alone.

View photos of Cortinarius spores

Sporocarp Characters

Shape and Size: Stem and cap resembling an unopened mushroom with a persistent veil of cobwebby to membranous tissue enclosing the gills; stem usually too short to lift the cap out of the soil; 1-9 cm tall, 2-15 cm broad (only of the hypogeous species).
Peridium: Cap smooth to silky or tomentose, dry to viscid, white to pale yellow to brown-yellow, brown, or purple-brown.
Stem: Fibrillose, white or similar in color to cap, penetrating the gleba to the cap but poorly developed to vestigial in hypogeous species.
Gleba: Regular to uneven or contorted gills that forcibly discharge spores that deposit on the unexposed side of the persistent veil.
Odor: Not distinctive to radish-like or pungent.

View photos of Cortinarius sporocarps

Name Derivation

An early name from Latin cortina (literally "curtain", but in mycology referring to the cortina, the web-like veil that connects the edge of the cap of some mushrooms to the stem) and -arius (possessive suffix), hence "possessing a cortina."

Distribution

Beneath ectomycorrhizal shrubs and trees; the hypogeous species of the Northern Hemisphere are known only from coniferous forests of mountains in western North America. Several hypogeous species also occur in Australia.
Season: Late spring to early autumn for the hypogeous species; the genus as a whole occurs throughout the year.
Species known from North Temperate Forests: 4. This mushroom genus may contain upwards of two thousand species in the Northern Hemisphere; it has been thoroughly studied only in Europe. Several species are truly hypogeous and thus depend on mycophagy for spore dispersal.

Keys and Descriptions

The hypogeous species of the North Temperate forests are treated by Thiers and Smith (1969) and Watling (1980); the epigeous species are represented, usually incompletely, in various regional floras.