Mild Red 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

Cap red or pink, with perhaps some yellow or orange mixed in

Flesh not changing color when bruised, or changing to brown (instead of black)

Diagnosis

• Taste mild

Narrow down your identification:

Cap up to 3" across; viscid; dark red, aging yellow (especially at the margin)
Gills cream, cross-veined
Stem white, usually aging yellowish brown from the base up
Growing under hardwoods

Cap up to 2 1/2" across; fragile; salmon to brick red; sometimes viscid; peeling 3/4 of the way to the center; margin tuberculate-striate
Gills close; cream, occasionally forking at stem
Growing under hardwoods

Cap up to 6" across; scarlet or brownish red to apricot or ochre; peeling up to 3/4 of the way to the center
Gills pale yellow, strongly cross-veined; edges sometimes tinged red
Common in northern boggy areas

Cap up to 4" across; deep red or carmine, with disk sometimes coral to apricot; pruinose; peeling nearly all the way to the center
Odor sometimes sour when old

Cap up to 5" across; various shades of bright apple red, often splotched with lighter, yellower areas; slightly scurfy at the disk; peels only a short distance from the margin
Growing under hardwoods

Cap up to 3 3/4" across; red or pink, disk usually cream, sometimes entire cap cream; peeling 1/2 of the way to the center
Gills pale cream, abundantly forked near the stem
Growing under hardwoods

Cap up to 4" across; growing more and more convoluted with age; margin grossly tuberculate-striate

Glossary

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