Cortinarius aurae is a little brown mushroom found in Europe and North America, originally described from a UK specimen in 2020.

Along with five other British webcaps, C. aurae was selected by Kew Gardens as a highlight of taxa described by the organisation's staff and affiliates in 2020.

Cortinarius aurae was described in a 2020 research note in the journal Fungal Diversity by Kare Liimatainen and Tuula Niskanen.

They are moderately warty, and fairly dextrinoid, meaning that they turn reddish to reddish-brown when stained with Melzer's reagent or Lugol's solution.

The pileipellis surface is pale, consisting of more or less parallel hyphae 8 to 13 μm wide that are densely encrusted with zebra-striped incrustations.

[1] Cortinarius aurae is found in mesic to damp coniferous forests, but also known to occur with sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa).