English clergyman Miles Joseph Berkeley described Cortinarius archeri in 1860 from a specimen collected in Cheshunt, Tasmania in April 1856.

[5] In 1891, the German botanist Otto Kuntze published Revisio generum plantarum, his response to what he perceived as poor method in existing nomenclatural practice.

[6] Within the genus, Cortinarius archeri belongs to the subgenus Myxacium, whose mushroom caps and stipes are covered with a layer of glutinous slime.

[8] In 1990, Austrian mycologist Egon Horak placed it in group D of the subgenus, several species with mushrooms that are purple or blue when young.

[9] In 2007, Italian mycologist Bruno Gasparini placed C. archeri and the Archeriani (which he reclassified as a subsection) into the subgenus Phlegmacium, which have sticky or glutinous caps but not stipes.

[11] A 2005 molecular study of the genus by Sigisfredo Garnica and colleagues was unable to place C. archeri in a clade with confidence, though showed its affinity with C.

[12] Australian naturalist John Burton Cleland described Cortinarius subarcheri in 1928 from a collection under brown stringybark (Eucalyptus baxteri) in Bundaleer State Forest in the Mount Lofty Ranges.

[17] This is the only Cortinarius species that was found in the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria's first fungi foray to Coranderrk Bush Sanctuary.

Cortinarius is a large and potentially confusing genus with a number of dangerously poisonous species, so they are generally not regarded as safe edible mushrooms.