Cortinarius australiensis (Cortinarius australiensis)

A mature Cortinarius australiensis fruit body is stout mushroom, with a cap often over 20 centimetres in diameter and with a stem about 5 centimetres in diameter and up to 15 centimetres long (but up to half that length my be buried in soil or leaf litter). The cap surface is smooth, a little sticky in moist conditions and white or with some brownish tints. Initially the cap is more or less globose but as it expands it flattens and, at maturity, the cap surface is more or less flat. The stem is white. The gills are a very pale brown.   

In the great majority of Cortinarius species a cobwebby partial veil is present but in this species there is a solid, membranous partial veil. Once the cap has expanded, raggedy remnants of that veil are usually present around the margin of the cap. The bulk of the veil remains as a ring of tissue, low on the stem and very close to the soil.

Spore print: rusty brown. Almost invariably you see a thick deposit of rusty brown spores on the upper surface of the ring.

This species grows on soil in eucalypt grasslands, woodlands or forests.