Species details

Brown webcap

Cortinarius brunneus

Inedible

Description

A dark brown to chestnut webcap with a hygrophanous cap, relatively widely spaced brown gills and a brownish stem.

Identification features

The young cap is bell-shaped to conical, later convex or flatter, dark brown when moist and paler when dry. The stem is slender to club-shaped with fibrous veil remnants; the spore print is rusty brown.

Identification checklist

Check the hygrophanous dark-brown cap, spaced brownish gills, slender-to-clavate stem with fibrous zones and rusty-brown spore print. Species-level identification in this group often needs microscopic characters.

How to separate similar species

Many brown webcaps are extremely similar. Photographs lacking gills, stem, base, habitat and mature spore colour are insufficient for reliable identification.

Habitat

Mycorrhizal mainly in moist coniferous and mixed woodland, often with spruce and pine; summer and autumn.