Russula foetentula

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

Cap entirely yellow or light brown

Smelling either sweet (like almonds or marzipan), or extremely foul
Cap color various shades of yellowish brown
Gills close; often stained or spotted some shade of brown
Stem large, firm; usually stained some shade of brown at the base
Taste acrid

Margin tuberculate-striate

Russula foetentula     Peck

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; viscid when wet; peeling 1/2 of the way to the center
  
• Gills yellowish orange to creamy yellow
  
• Stem cavernous; concolorous with cap but paler; stains (when present) reddish brown

• Spore print pale yellow
  
• Odor generally not as strong as the other Smelly Yellow Russulas

Microscropic Characters

• Spores 7-9 x 5.5-7 µm, warts .7-1.2 µm high, very few connecting lines
  
• Pileocystidia absent, but a few protruding hyphae are weakly staining in sulfovanillin

 

 

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