Russula amoenolens

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.

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

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

Only cap colors white to cream or buff, or dark brown to black

Cap and flesh color constant
Stem (only!) perhaps aging or bruising a different color, but only slightly, and not a really dark one

Cap dark brown; peeling 1/2 of the way to the center; margin tuberculate-striate;

Russula amoenolens     H. Romagnesi

Here are the characters that distinguish this species from the others in its group. For its more general characters, see higher up on the page.
If there's just a few words or a microscopic feature here, a more thorough description can be found above.

Diagnosis

• Cap up to 4" across; slightly viscid (the ones in the picture are fairly soaked); dark yellowish brown to dark greyish brown, lighter with age;
  
• Gills dingy cream, edges browning with age
  
• Odor rancid, cheesy, or oily
  
• Taste unpleasant: oily then slowly very hot

• Stem white or lighter version of cap color
  
• Spore print cream

Microscropic Characters

• Spores 6-9 x 5-7 µm, warts .3-.8 µm high, with a few connecting lines.
  
• Pileocystidia absent, but there are some small hyphal ends weakly staining in sulfovanillin present.

 

 

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