Dark Brown 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

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

Diagnosis

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

Narrow down your identification:

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

Lookalikes: Smelly Yellow Russula     Section Smelling either sweet (like almonds or marzipan), or extremely foul Russula densifolia Cap darkens to dull brown, eventually blackish with age; peeling 1/2 of the way to the center Flesh turns red, then quickly greyish black when bruised Taste usually hot to very hot

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