A medium-sized olive-brown, squamulose, glutinous Cortinarius, recognised by its brown-olive to date-brown cap with persistent veil-scales, grey-blue young lamellae, bluish-greenish young stipe, and large, densely warted spores.

Cap: 30-60 mm diam.; pulvinate to convex to plano‑convex. Colour brown‑olive when young, becoming date‑brown-olivaceous. Surface densely covered with radially arranged brown or ochraceous squamules from the veil; viscid to glutinous. Margin sometimes slightly striate, often seamed with membranous veil remnants.
Lamellae: Attachment adnate to adnexed, occasionally decurrent. Large, greyish‑blue when young, turning beige‑olivaceous to bright rust‑brown to argillaceous. Edges concolorous, conspicuously notched or serrate, with irregular vertical striation on the gill face.
Stipe: 25-60 (-80) x 5-15 mm; base to 25 mm diam. Equal or attenuated upward, base abruptly marginate but never with a true bulb (piston‑like). Colour bluish‑greenish when young, becoming ochraceous. Densely covered with golden or ochraceous squamules from the veil, sometimes in bands or patches. Surface fibrillose, dry, hollow. Cortina absent.
Context: Whitish to brownish, olive‑brown beneath the pileus cuticle. Green‑blue in upper stipe.
Odour/taste: not distinctive.