Russula compacta

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 up to 8" across; white to ivory, felty on top; soon funnel-shaped
Gills crowded, cream to greyish buff; partial gills abundant
Stem usually short, thick

Russula compacta     Frost

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

• Flesh bruising reddish brown; smelling strongly of rotting fish, especially when old

• Taste mild to slightly acrid
  
• Flesh turns deep gray-green with FeSO4
  
• Spore print light ochre

Microscropic Characters

• Spores 7-10 x 6-85 µm, warts .1-.5 µm high, fully reticulate
  
• Pileocystidia absent

 

 

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