Home / Violet & amethyst agarics / TM0086
Weathered violet agarics on a bank
Cortinarius or Laccaria Genus
Angles captured. 5 frames of one subject.
Morphology
Several fruitbodies at different stages, caps 3–6 cm, lilac to greyish-violet, some faded almost to buff. One mature cap shows distinctly rusty-brown gills from below.
Habitat & substrate
Leaf litter and rotting wood along a bank under mixed hardwood. The substrate is well-rotted wood; the ectomycorrhizal candidates survive that only through soil contact under the debris, which the frames cannot verify.
Lookalikes & what rules them out
Laccaria has thick, distant, waxy gills; Cortinarius thinner and closer with a rusty print. Several frames here show close thin gills with a dull pinkish-brown cast, favouring Cortinarius. The blewit (Collybia nuda, long Lepista nuda; pale pinkish print) and Laccaria ochropurpurea are both common violet lookalikes here and stay on the list until a print exists.
To confirm this identification
A print from this collection settles this collection. The violet entries span four sites and three months; treating them as one species is exactly the assumption a print exists to test. Rusty brown = Cortinarius, white = Laccaria, pale pink = blewit.
Notes
The gills of the oldest fruitbody read rusty-brown in the frames. If that is spore colour rather than age, this collection is a Cortinarius; the print would say so directly.
Found at Goodnow Rd area, Princeton, MA on Saturday, 8 August 2026 at 10:15. See the full walk for that day's weather and everything else recorded.
Others in this group
Violet cortCortinarius sp. · Jul 31Moderate
Violet agarics on a red eroded bankCortinarius or Laccaria · Aug 6Moderate
Violet agaric in pine litterCortinarius or Laccaria · Aug 6Moderate
Violet agaric, collected and examinedCortinarius or Laccaria · Aug 6Moderate
Violet agarics scattered on a hillsideCortinarius or Laccaria · Aug 6Moderate
Violet agaric beside a mossy logCortinarius or Laccaria · Aug 6Moderate
Violet agarics along a fallen logCortinarius or Laccaria · Aug 6Moderate
Violet agarics on a mossy decaying logCortinarius or Laccaria · Aug 8Moderate