Mycorrhizal with birch, oak, beech and spruce in old deciduous and coniferous forest, usually on acidic soil, late summer to autumn

Edible at best mediocre — some guides call it inedible and report a bitter aftertaste when cooked

• ▸ Deep violet to blue-black cap up to 15 cm across, dry and covered in fine downy scales — neither sticky nor slimy
• ▸ Violet flesh throughout, darker just below the cap skin and in the stem
• ▸ Dark violet gills, broadly attached, turning purplish-brown with age
• ▸ Stem the same violet colour, woolly-fibrillose, often with a swollen base and a web-like veil that soon vanishes
• ▸ Mild taste and a faint smell reminiscent of cedar wood

The type species of the webcaps, and one of the few violet mushrooms that is neither sticky nor slimy. Widespread but nowhere common in Europe and listed as endangered in the British Isles; it is prized for its beauty rather than its flavour, and the number of similarly coloured webcaps makes it a risky species to collect for the table.