Medium to large agaric, growing on the ground, with a rusty or ochre-brown spore print. Pileus brown, purple or black, dry. Lamellae adnexed, adnate or sinuate or notched, rarely subdecurrent, dark violet-brown, very dark brown to blackish at maturity. Stipe central, purple, initially with purple cobwebby partial veil that leaves a ring zone or no traces. Spores yellow-brown, warty; plage present or absent; germ pore absent. Cheilocystidia present. Lamellar trama regular. Pileipellis a cutis or trichoderm. Clamp connections present (may be small and easy to overlook).

The purple colours of the pileus and stipe contrasting with the very dark lamellae make this a very distinctive group, especially when confirmed by the brown spore print and warty spores (which can have a plage). Other purple Cortinarius species often have a viscid or glutinous pileus, and the lamellae are never as dark as in the subgenus Cortinarius.

Cortinarius subgenus Cortinarius.

Four species currently described: Cortinarius austroviolaceus, C. hallowellensis, C. jenolanensis and C. kioloensis. Most other Australian records of this group have been under C. violaceus (a Northern Hemisphere species, unlikely to occur in Australia). According to Gasparini (2001) C. violaceus sensu Bougher & Syme (1998) resembles C. atrolazulinus from New Zealand.

W.A., Qld, N.S.W., Vic. and Tas. (and possibly also S.A.).

In native forests.

On the ground.

Ectomycorrhizal.

Bougher, N.L. & Syme, K. (1998), Fungi of Southern Australia. University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands. [Description, Illustration and Microcharacters of C. violaceus]

Fuhrer, B. (2005), A Field Guide to Australian Fungi. Bloomings Books, Hawthorn. [Description and Illustration of C. aff. violaceus]

Gasparini, B. (2001a), A contribution to the knowledge of Cortinarius and allied genera of southern Tasmania, Australia. 1. Cortinarius subgenus Cortinarius, Australas. Mycol. 20: 49–54. [Description, Illustration and Microcharacters of C. austroviolaceus]

Moser, M. (1987), Cortinarius subgen. Cortinarius in the SW-Pacific area, Sydowia 39: 138–147. [Description and Microcharacters of Cortinarius violaceus and four other closely related species from Borneo, Malaysia and New Zealand]

Wood, A.E. (2009), Cortinarius Fr. subgenus Cortinarius in Australia, Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales 130: 147–155. [Description and Microcharacters of C. hallowellensis, C. jenolanensis and C. kioloensis and B&W Illustration of C. jenolanensis and C. kioloensis; and Key to south-west Pacific species of subgenus Cortinarius]

Young, A.M. (2005b), A Field Guide to the Fungi of Australia. University of New South Wales Press, Sydney. [B&W Illustration and Description of C. aff. violaceus]