Cortinarius violaceus
Cortinarius violaceus is a fungus in the webcap genus Cortinarius. The fruit bodies are dark purple mushrooms with caps up to 15 cm across. It is found predominantly in conifer forests in North America and Europe.
About Cortinarius violaceus in brief
Cortinarius violaceus is a fungus in the webcap genus Cortinarius. The fruit bodies are dark purple mushrooms with caps up to 15 cm across. The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753, and has undergone several name changes. It is found predominantly in conifer forests in North America and deciduous forests in Europe. There are some populations that seem to prefer pines, but no genetic divergence between the two has been found. If C.violaceus were to be split from the rest of the current genus, according to the rules of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, it would retain the name Cortinius. The closest genetic study of its closest subgenus, Aviolus, was published in 2015 by Emma Harrower and colleagues and would put it at least twelve genetic miles away from the violet webcap. The specific epithet Violaceus refers to the deep violet colour of its cap. In English, it is commonly known as the violetwebcap, or violet cort. The stalk measures 6 to 12 centimetres by 1 to 2 centimetre, sometimes with a thicker base. The dark flesh has a smell reminiscent of cedar wood. Though they are sometimes described as edible, the appearance of these mushrooms is more distinctive than their taste.
The mushroom’s unusual colour and cystidia make them odd, due to their unusual colour. The type species is the type species of the genus CortInarius, but is readily distinguished from other species in the genus by its dark colouration and distinct Cystidia. It was established as a genus by English botanist Samuel Frederick Gray in the first volume of his 1821 work A Natural Arrangement of British Plants, where the species was recorded as Cortinaria violacea, “the violet curtain-stool”. The starting date of fungal taxonomy had been set as 1 January 1821, to coincide with the date of the works of the “father of mycology”, the Swedish naturalist Elias Magnus Fries, which meant the name was considered valid. However, a 1987 revision set the starting date at 1 May 1753. The name no longer requires the ratification of Fries’s authority, and is thus written as Cort inarius violacesi Gray. Other populations once identified as C. violacesi or close to that species have now been described as new and separate species, such as C palatinus, C. neotropicus, C altissimus, C kioloensis and C. hallowellensis.
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This page is based on the article Cortinarius violaceus published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 29, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
