Fungi encyclopedia
A reference for the fungi you actually find
Each entry describes one species the way you meet it in the field — the cap and its surface, what sits underneath, the stipe and its base, the spore print colour, the substrate it fruits from, and the species most often confused with it.
Showing results for “Russula or Lactarius species”
Milk-white Brittlegill
Gilled
A large, chalk-white funnel-shaped brittlegill that pushes up through the soil, often emerging still crusted with earth and litter. Its decurrent, widely spaced gills are unusual for the genus.
Spore print · White to pale cream
Fragile Brittlegill
Gilled
A small, extremely fragile brittlegill with a variably purple, wine or olive-centred cap. A hand lens reveals finely serrated gill edges, a rare and diagnostic feature.
Spore print · White
Crab Brittlegill
Gilled
A robust brittlegill with a dark wine-red cap, ochre gills and a stipe flushed pink that browns wherever it is handled, accompanied by a strong smell of shellfish.
Spore print · Ochre
Yellow Swamp Brittlegill
Gilled
A striking pure chrome-yellow brittlegill of boggy birch woods, identified by its bright unfaded cap and by flesh that turns grey and eventually black where cut or bruised.
Spore print · Pale ochre
Yellowing Brittlegill
Gilled
A small, fragile brittlegill whose entire fruiting body — cap, gills, stipe and flesh — discolours a deep honey-yellow with age or handling. It is common in damp mossy conifer woodland.
Spore print · Pale cream
Stinking Brittlegill
Gilled
A big, stout ochre-brown brittlegill with a slimy cap, a strongly grooved and warty margin and a heavy rancid oily smell, its stout stipe becoming chambered and hollow.
Spore print · Pale cream
Geranium Brittlegill
Gilled
A beech-wood brittlegill in which cap, gills and stipe are all the same pale straw-honey colour, identified by that uniformity together with a strong smell of geranium leaves.
Spore print · Pale cream
Copper Brittlegill
Gilled
A sturdy orange-brown brittlegill of northern pine woods whose white flesh and stipe turn ash-grey and finally blackish as the fruiting body ages.
Spore print · Pale ochre
Ochre Brittlegill
Gilled
One of the most abundant woodland brittlegills, with a plain dull ochre-yellow cap, pale cream gills and a white stipe that greys distinctly with age and wet weather.
Spore print · Pale cream
Beechwood Sickener
Gilled
A compact scarlet brittlegill restricted to beech woods, distinguished from its conifer relatives by firmer flesh, a matt cap whose skin peels only part-way, and crowded white gills.
Spore print · White
The Sickener
Gilled
A vivid scarlet brittlegill of damp conifer woodland and sphagnum, with a shiny cap whose skin peels almost to the centre, pure white gills, a white chalky stem and a white spore print.
Spore print · White
Golden Brittlegill
Gilled
A small, brightly coloured brittlegill with one of the deepest yellow spore prints in the genus. Its cap ranges through gold, apricot, orange and rose, often on a single flush.
Spore print · Deep yellow to ochre
Bare-toothed Brittlegill
Gilled
A firm, muted pinkish-brown brittlegill whose cap skin shrinks back from the rim to expose a fine pale line of gill ends. It partners with oak and beech on well-drained soils.
Spore print · White to very pale cream
Rosy Brittlegill
Gilled
A hard-fleshed rose-red brittlegill of beech woods with a distinctive matt, chalky cap surface and a stipe often flushed pink at the base.
Spore print · Cream
Greencracked Brittlegill
Gilled
An unmistakable brittlegill whose firm green cap breaks up into a mosaic of angular verrucose patches, paired with white brittle gills and a plain white stipe.
Spore print · White
False Saffron Milkcap
Gilled
An orange spruce-associated milkcap whose carrot-coloured latex turns wine-red within half an hour and whose flesh and cap green strongly with age.
Spore print · Pale cream
Saffron Milkcap
Gilled
A pine-associated milkcap with a concentrically zoned carrot-orange funnel cap, decurrent orange gills, carrot-coloured latex and a pitted stem, the whole fungus staining dull green where damaged.
Spore print · Pale ochre to buff
Indigo Milkcap
Gilled
An unmistakable milkcap with a silvery indigo-blue cap and gills that bleed dark blue latex, staining green where handled. It forms mycorrhizal partnerships with oaks and pines across eastern North America, Central America and parts of East Asia.
Spore print · Cream to pale yellow
Purple Brittlegill
Gilled
A common brittlegill with a deep purple cap darkening almost to black at the centre, cream gills and a firm white stipe that ages dirty grey.
Spore print · Pale cream
Blackening Brittlegill
Gilled
A heavy, thick-fleshed brittlegill with unusually distant, fat gills whose white flesh reddens then slowly turns grey and finally coal-black, leaving charred-looking husks that persist for months.
Spore print · White
Saffron Milk Cap
Gilled
A stout orange milkcap with concentric bands on the cap, decurrent orange gills, and carrot-orange latex that slowly turns the flesh green. It grows only with pines.
Spore print · Pale cream to buff
Charcoal Burner
Gilled
A common woodland brittlegill with a variably purple, green and slate-grey cap, unique in the genus for gills that are soft, greasy and flexible rather than brittle and shattering.
Spore print · White
Blue Band Brittlegill
Gilled
A modestly sized conifer brittlegill with a delicately lilac to azure cap dusted with a fine bloom, often paler or ochre-tinted at the centre. Its gills and spore deposit stay close to white.
Spore print · White to palest cream
Birch Milkcap
Gilled
A small tawny orange-brown birch associate with a matt, slightly wrinkled cap and a small pointed umbo. Its scanty white latex slowly turns yellow when smeared on a white tissue.
Spore print · Pale cream