A medium-sized, pale, glutinous, veil-bearing cortinarius, endemic to New Zealand, originally described as Rozites pallidus and later recombined as Cortinarius achrous when Rozites was shown to be nested within Cortinarius. It is characterised by a pale grey-brown to pale argillaceous, strongly hygrophanous, glutinous cap with white veil squamules, a stout white stipe with a persistent annulus and veil belts, and pale rust-brown spores. It is associated with Nothofagus forest

Cap: Up to 55 mm diam.; convex to umbonate when young, becoming campanulate to umbonate‑expanded. Colour pale grey‑brownish to pale argillaceous, with pale ochre tints over the disc; strongly hygrophanous and striate at the margin. Surface glutinous, with white fibrillose patches and squamules of the universal veil embedded in the gluten.
Lamellae: Crowded, pale brown to argillaceous, emarginate; edge even to subserrate, concolorous.
Stipe: To 80 x 15 mm, cylindric to subclavate at base; white, becoming pale brown near the base, fibrillose. With a white, striate, persistent annulus, and a few incomplete white belts of veil toward the base; dry, solid, often in small groups.
Context: Whitish to pale argillaceous, watery
Odour/taste: not distinctive.