[2] Austrian naturalist Franz Xaver von Wulfen described the species as Agaricus sanguineus in 1781, reporting that it appeared in the fir tree forests around Klagenfurt and Ebenthal and in October.

[4] Samuel Frederick Gray established Cortinarius as a genus in the first volume of his 1821 work A Natural Arrangement of British Plants, recording the species as Cortinaria sanguinea "the bloody curtain-stool".

Most mycologists retain Dermocybe as merely a subgenus of Cortinarius as genetically all the species lie within the latter genus.

[6] It is closely related to Cortinarius puniceus, which grows under oak and beech from England and France.

[7] The dark blood-red cap is convex, and later flattens, measuring 2–5 cm (0.8–2 in) across, its surface covered in silky fibres radiating from the centre.