Cortinarius infractus

Cortinarius infractus

Sooty-olive Cortinarius or bitter webcap (Cortinarius infractus (Pers.) Fr., 1838) is a basidiomecete mushroom belonging to the Cortinariaceae family.

Systematic –
From a systematic point of view it belongs to:
Eukaryota domain,
Fungi Kingdom,
Phylum Basidiomycota,
Class Basidiomycetes,
Order Agaricales,
Cortinariaceae family,
Genus Cortinarius,
Subgenus Phlegmacium,
Elasticated section,
Species C. infractus.
The term is basonym:
– Agaricus infractus Pers..
The terms are synonymous:
– Cortinarius accedens Britzelm.;
– Cortinarius infractus Berk.;
– Cortinarius infractus f. aeruginosus Rob.Henry;
– Cortinarius infractus f. obscurocyaneus M.M.Moser;
– Cortinarius infractus f. obscurocyaneus M.M.Moser ex Nespiak, 1975;
– Cortinarius infractus f. olivellus (M.M.Moser) Nespiak;
– Cortinarius infractus f. subhygrophaneus Henry;
– Cortinarius infractus f. subhygrophanus Rob.Henry;
– Cortinarius infractus var. aeruginosus Rob.Henry;
– Cortinarius infractus var. aeruginosus Rob.Henry ex Reumaux;
– Cortinarius infractus var. clavoides Chevassut & Rob.Henry;
– Cortinarius infractus var. infractus;
– Cortinarius infractus var. obscurocyaneus (Secr. ex J.Schröt.) G.Garnier;
– Cortinarius infractus var. obscurocyaneus (Secr. ex J.Schröt.) Quadr.;
– Cortinarius obscurocyaneus Secr.;
– Cortinarius obscurocyaneus Secr. ex J.Schröt.;
– Cortinarius subsimilis (Pers. ex Secr.) Fr.;
– Gomphos infractus (Pers.) Kuntze;
– Gomphos infraxus (Pers.) Kuntze;
– Hydrocybe infractus (Pers.) Fayod;
– Phlegmacium infractum (Pers.) Wünsche;
– Phlegmacium infractum f. olivellum M.M.Moser;
– Phlegmacium infractum var. obscurocyaneum Secr.;
– Phlegmacium infractum var. obscurocyaneum Secr. ex M.M.Moser, 1960;
– Phlegmacium obscurocyaneum (Secr. ex J.Schröt.) Ricken;
– Phlegmacium subsimile (Pers. ex Secr.) Ricken;
– Pholiota infracta (Pers.) P.Kumm..
Within this very variable species, the following varieties are recognised:
– Cortinarius infractus var. calcareoilicis Marchand;
– Cortinarius infractus var. obscurocyaneus (Ricken) M.M.Moser;
– Cortinarius infractus var. obscurocyaneus (Secr.);
– Cortinarius infractus var. olivellus (Moser) Nespiak;
– Cortinarius infractus var. olivellus M.M.Moser;
– Cortinarius infractus var. subhygrophanicus R.Henry;
– Cortinarius infractus var. subsimilis (Pers.) Quél..

Etymology –
The term Cortinarius comes from cortina: with a curtain, due to the characteristic residues of the partial veil from the brim of the hat to the jamb.
The specific epithet infractus derives from the Latin “infractus”, meaning broken.

Geographic Distribution and Habitat –
Cortinarius infractus is a rather frequent mushroom in broad-leaved and coniferous forests.
Its habitat is on both calcareous and siliceous soils where it grows in late summer and autumn.

Recognition –
Cortinarius infractus is a mushroom that is quite easily identifiable if one takes into account the distinctive characteristics such as the dark brown color of the cap with olive shades, the grey-olive gills, the upper part of the stem tinged with blue and the bitter taste of the flesh and cuticle .
The hat can reach 10 cm in diameter; initially sub-hemispherical or convex with an involuted edge, it quickly tends to become more or less flattened with a large umbo and a straight, slightly wavy edge. It has an easily removable cuticle, shiny and viscous in humid weather, shiny in dry weather, rather dark (brown grey, brown ochre) with olive shades, adorned with numerous innate, radial, black fibrils.
The hymenium has dense, narrow, adnate or unmarginated-hooked lamellae, interspersed with rounded or attenuated lamellae, of an olive-brown, then rusty-brown colour, entire or finely serrated edge, first light then of the same color as the lamellae.
The stem is up to 10 cm high, cylindrical, firm and fibrillose, it is almost the same color as the cap, but lighter towards the bottom. It has fairly dense, adnate, unmarginated gills, of a brownish gray colour, sometimes tinged with olive, with a lighter and serrated edge.
The flesh is firm, light ocher or whitish in colour, olive under the cuticle and in the bark of the stem, with a rather bitter taste and giving off the smell of artichoke or raw potato.
With alkalis the cuticle of the cap turns bluish gray and then tends to brown; the reaction of the flesh is null.
Under the microscope, subglobose, drop-shaped, warty spores, 6.05-8.8 × 5-7 µm, can be seen. the basidia are clavate, tetrasporic, with buckle joints, 29.7 – 35 × 8 – 9 µm. Pileipellis formed by ± parallel, gelled hyphae, with olive-yellow pigment.

Cultivation –
Cortinarius infractus is an uncultivated mushroom.

Customs and Traditions –
Cortinarius infractus is a species which, as with most inedible ones, has no local names known in Italian. In German it is called “Bitterer Schleimkopf”, in English “Sooty-olive Cortinarius” or “Bitter webcap”, and in French “Cortinaire à marge brisée”.
It is an inedible mushroom.
This mushroom can be confused with Cortinarius infractus var. obscurocyaneus, which however has a violet colour, both on the flesh and on the gills; with the Cortinarius infractus var. olivellus, which instead has grey-greenish colors almost everywhere. However, they all have the bitter taste of meat in common.
From a chemical point of view, it has been shown that the chemical composition of the essential oils obtained from the fruiting bodies contains 36 components, mainly ambrette musk, in a ratio of 62.3%. The essential oil was also tested for antimicrobial activity against the human pathogenic bacteria Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterococcus faecalis, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus and the fungus Candida tropicalis, but showed no biological activity.
Furthermore, two alkaloids have been isolated from the fruiting bodies of Cortinarius infractus: infractopicrin and 10-hydroxy-infractopicrin; both compounds show the ability to inhibit the enzyme acetylcholinesterase in vitro and possess higher selectivity compared to galantamine, a drug used to treat mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease.

Preparation Method –
Cortinarius infractus is an inedible mushroom but which could be of some interest in the pharmacological field.

Guido Bissanti

Sources
– Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
– GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
– Cetto B., 2008. Mushrooms from life, Saturnia, Trento.
– Pignatti S., 1982. Flora d’Italia, Edagricole, Bologna.
– Conti F., Abbate G., Alessandrini A., Blasi C. (ed.), 2005. An annotated checklist of the Italian vascular flora, Palombi Editore.

Photo source:
– https://www.artportalen.se/MediaLibrary/2023/8/852aa413-4516-49fb-99c1-2f68b670ba9e_image.jpg
– https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Bresadola_-_Cortinarius_infractus.png

Attention: Pharmaceutical applications and food uses are indicated for informational purposes only, they do not represent in any way a medical prescription; we therefore decline any responsibility for their use for healing, aesthetic or food purposes.