Really Motley Purple Russula     SubSection

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

Purple Russula     Subgenus Cap with at least some purple, lilac, vinaceous or magenta coloring	Links from Look-alikes Mundane Purple Russula     Section Cap color solid, or changing smoothly and universally from center to margin
Motley Purple Russula     Section Cap usually more than one color, mostly purples and greens, shading from one to the other randomly over the cap	Solid Green Russula     Section cap cuticle entire

Diagnosis

• Cap surface intrinsically multicolored (every once in a while, you get a solid one), predominantly purplish, lavender, or green; occasionally with pink, brownish or olive tones
  
• Gills forking repeatedly
  
• Cap surface often with fine radial anastomosing veins; peeling 1/2 of the way to the center
  
• Spore print white

Narrow down your identification:

Taste mild
Stem white or flushed lilac
Flesh turns very slightly greenish with FeSO4

Taste acrid
Stem sometimes tinted brownish at the base
Gills either repeatedly forked all the way to the margin, or forking until about half-way with the forks then replaced by partial gills (like forks, but missing the connection to a main gill)

Glossary

Mushrooms

People

Newsletter

Events