The Violet Cortinarius is a very beautiful mushroom and one easy of recognition. At first the whole plant is uniformly colored, but with age the gills assume a dingy ochraceous or brownish-cinnamon hue. The cap is generally well formed and regular, and is beautifully adorned with little hairy scales or tufts. These are rarely shown in figures of the European plant, but they are quite noticeable in the American plant, and should not be overlooked. The flesh is more or less tinged with violet. Peck. 50th Rep. N. Y. State Bot.
No one can fail to recognize this plant. The web-like veil in the young plant, the bulbous stem, and the violet tinge throughout will readily distinguish it. It grows in rich hilly country. It grows solitary, and in open woods.
TRIBE IV. DERMOCYBE.
Cortinarius cinnamoneus. Fr.
The Cinnamon Cortinarius. Edible.
Figure 239.—Cortinarius cinnamoneus. Two-thirds natural size. Caps cinnamon-brown. Stems yellow.
The pileus is thin, convex, nearly expanded, sometimes nearly plane, sometimes slightly umbonate, sometimes the pileus is abruptly bent downward; dry, fibrillose at least when young, often with concentric rows of scales on the margin, cinnamon-brown, flesh yellowish.
The gills are thin, close, firmly attached to the stem, slightly notched, decurrent with a tooth, becoming easily separated from the stem, shining, yellowish, then tawny-yellow.