Red-banded Webcap

Conservation Status

IUCN Red List

not listed

NatureServe

NNR - Unranked

Minnesota

not listed

Description

Red-banded Webcap is a common, late season, medium-sized to large, gilled mushroom. It occurs in Europe, Asia, and North America. In the United States it occurs from Maine to New Jersey, west to Minnesota and Illinois, and south along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia, and in Washington State and Alaska. It occurs across southern Canada from Nova Scotia west to British Columbia and north in the west to the Yukon.

Red-banded Webcap is found in late summer and fall in northern mixed coniferous and deciduous forests where birch is present. It is closely associated with birch, though this may not be apparent in a mixed forest. It grows on the ground, sometimes alone but usually scattered, or in groups but not clustered (gregarious). It obtains its nutrients from the rootlets of living trees (mycorrhizal).

When it first appears, the fruiting body is convex, and the surface is smooth and moist but not slimy or sticky (viscid). It may be hairless or covered with minute silky hairs. It soon becomes bell-shaped with the margins curved inward. The color is variable, yellowish brown, orangish brown, reddish brown, or rusty brown. As it ages the cap expands and the color fades. The mature cap is 2″ to 5″ (5 to 13 cm) in diameter and nearly flat or broadly humped (umbonate). The surface is dry and it sometimes develops small scales. There are sometimes small pieces of tissue, remnants of the universal veil, clinging to the margin.

The gills are broad, fairly well spaced, broadly attached to the stalk (adnate), and pale dirty yellowish to pale cinnamon at first. When young, they are covered by a whitish, cobweb-like veil (cortina). As the mushroom ages, the cortina breaks away and the gills become narrowly attached to the stalk (adnexed) or abruptly narrowed at the stalk (notched). The color changes to rusty brown as the spores mature.

The stalk is 2¾″ to 6″ (7 to 15 mm) long, and ⅜″ to 1″ (1.0 to 2.5 cm) thick at the top, and club-shaped, becoming wider at the bottom. The surface is dry, hairless or covered with minute silky hairs, and white to pale brownish. There are one or more rings, “bracelets” of cobwebby fibers, remnants of the cortina. These are whitish at first but soon turn orangish red as they trap falling spores. There are usually 2 or 3 rings, sometimes more.

The flesh is thick and whitish to pale brownish. It was formerly considered edible, though thought to contain the deadly toxin orellanine, like other Cortinarius mushrooms, but at much lower concentrations. Recent research has found that it does not contain orellanine, but it should be avoided due to the risk of confusing it with toxic lookalikes and its tendency to accumulate heavy metals.

The spore print is rusty brown.

Similar Species

Habitat and Hosts

Mixed coniferous and deciduous forests

Birch

Ecology

Season

Late summer and fall

Distribution

Sources

7, 24, 30, 77, 83.

Biodiversity occurrence data published by: Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas (accessed through the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas Portal, bellatlas.umn.edu. Accessed 2/14/2026).

Cortinarius armillatus (Fr.) Fr. in GBIF Secretariat (2023). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org. Accessed 2/14/2026.

Mycology Collections Portal (MyCoPortal) https://www.mycoportal.org/portal/collections/index.php). Accessed 2/14/2026.