Russulales     Suborder

This is a key to gilled mushrooms, that is, mushrooms having a definite cap with a fertile surface consisting of gills. The fruiting body usually also has a stem, although that may be lateral or absent (usually, then, the mushroom is growing from wood). You can use this key to identify mushrooms that you find.

Diagnosis

• Flesh without fibers, fracturing with the same sort of break as a piece of chalk
  
• Spore and gill color limited to white, yellow, or ochre
  
• Mycorrhizal: occuring only on the ground, and only when there are trees nearby
  
• No ring or volva on stalk
  
• All fleshy-stemmed mushrooms whose gills exude a latex when cut go here

Microscropic Characters

• Spores amyloid, with points (warts) and ridges
  
• When the ridges connect the warts, as in the picture, the spore is said to have a reticulum. A full reticulum connects all the warts; a partial reticulum (as in the picture) connects only some of them. Sometimes there are just a few lines connecting a few of the warts.
  
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• The spores illustrated also have bubbles inside, which makes them a little confusing-looking

Narrow down your identification:

• Fruiting bodies (especially the gills) exuding a liquid (called a latex) when broken
  
• Stalk (and sometimes even gills) usually concolorous with cap

• No latex
  
• Cap usually brighter colored than Lactarius
  
• Stalk usually white or tinged with color of cap

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