Medium to large agaric, growing on the ground under Nothofagus, with a greenish brown spore print. Pileus white, cream or pale grey, dry. Lamellae adnexed, sinuate or notched or subdecurrent, yellowish brown at maturity. Stipe central. Partial veil remnants a ring zone. Odour very strong, sweetish. Spores yellow-brown with olive tinge, very finely warty (can appear smooth under the light microscope); plage absent; germ pore absent. Cheilocystidia present, clavate or vesiculose. Pileipellis a cutis. Clamp connections present.

Differs from other large, white Cortinarius by the dry pileus, the absence of membranous veil remnants, a greenish spore print and finely ornamented or smooth spores. If the green tint of the spore print is missed, Hebeloma could appear similar, but the pileus is viscid. The stature is similar to Tricholoma, but that genus has a white spore print. Inocybe species are rarely as large, cheilocystidia are often thick-walled, and spores are either nodulose, or, when evenly rounded, are not warty.

One species: Cortinarius mariae (= Rapacea), keyed out separately due the very unusual combination in the genus of a greenish spore print and smooth spores.

Cortinarius mariae (E.Horak) Peintner, E.Horak, M.M.Moser & Vilgalys, Mycotaxon 83: 449 (2002).

Tas. Also N.Z. and New Guinea.

In cool-temperate rainforest, with Nothofagus.

On the ground.

Ectomycorrhizal.

Gasparini, B. (2007b), Genus Cortinarius, subgenus Phlegmacium in Tasmania, New Zealand J. Bot. 45: 155–236.[B&W Illustration, Description and Microcharacters of C. mariae]

Horak, E. (1999), New genera of Agaricales (Basidiomycota). I. Rapacea gen. nov., Kew Bull. 54: 789–794. [Description, B&W Illustration and Microcharacters of C. mariae (as Rapacea)]

Taylor, M. (1981), Mushrooms and Toadstools. A.H. & A.W. Reid, Wellington. [Illustration of C. mariae, as Cortinarius sp., Plate 16 (78)]