English: Birch webcap; Yellow girdled webcap.
Region: widespread, Europe, Asia; also eastern North America.
Name: cortina in Latin means veil; triumphans means triumphing.
Synonym: Cortinarius crocolitus.
Habitat: mycorrhizal with Betula.
Use: edible; others treat it with suspicion, as the similarly brown-coloured webcaps are lethal.
MycologyType: flesh is cream-coloured; taste mild to bitter; not unpleasant smell; fruiting in autumn.
Cap: yellowish, darker in the centre, paler on the edges; convex; 5 to 12 cm diameter.
Stipe: 7 to 17 cm tall, 1 to 3 cm thick; swollen at the base; white up top, yellow lower down, as brown remnants of the veil; with ring.
Hymenium: gills adnate, hidden by a cream or white veil when young, cream or lilac early on, darken to rusty with the spores.
Spore print: rusty coloured, reddish-brown.
Spores: almond-shaped; 10 to 13, by 5 to 7 μm.
TaxonomyCortinarius triumphans is a member of the subgenus Phlegmacium within the genus Cortinarius; they have sticky caps, slimy in wet weather, and dry stipes.