Home / Violet & amethyst agarics / TM0051
Violet agaric beside a mossy log
Cortinarius or Laccaria Genus
Angles captured. Two locating frames and one low oblique showing the cap and upper stipe.
Morphology
Cap 3 cm, violet, convex. Stipe pale violet. Solitary, tucked against woody debris.
Habitat & substrate
Leaf litter and rotting wood at the base of a mossy log.
Lookalikes & what rules them out
Two genera stay in play. Laccaria amethystina and L. ochropurpurea have thick, widely spaced, waxy gills; Cortinarius has thinner, closer gills and a rusty spore print. Frames #4233, #4234 and #4243 show gills that are close and thin, with a distinctly pinkish-brown cast suggesting a rusty deposit — which points to Cortinarius.
To confirm this identification
One spore print settles the whole group. Rusty brown = Cortinarius, white = Laccaria. Because these six populations are almost certainly one species, a single print resolves all of them at once.
Found at Leominster State Forest, Leominster, MA on Thursday, 6 August 2026 at 11:25. See the full walk for that day's weather and everything else recorded.
Others in this group
Violet cortCortinarius sp. · Jul 31Moderate–high
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 agarics along a fallen logCortinarius or Laccaria · Aug 6Moderate
Violet agarics on a mossy decaying logCortinarius or Laccaria · Aug 8Moderate
Large violet agaric by a fallen logCortinarius or Laccaria · Aug 8Moderate