Russula sanguinea

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)

Hot Red Russula     SubSection Taste acrid, peppery, hot

Links from Look-alikes Mundane Purple Russula     Section Cap color solid, or changing smoothly and universally from center to margin

Russula sanguinea     Fries

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; deep red or purplish red to pink or almost white; barely peeling at all; striate in age
  
• Flesh firm to hard
  
• Taste slight to moderately acrid, and sometimes also bitter
  
• Under pines

• Gills subdecurrent; cream to light ochre; close
  
• Stem sometimes flushed pink or red
  
• Odor faintly fruity

Microscropic Characters

• Spores 7-9 x 6-8 µm, warts .5-1 µm high, isolated
  
• Pileocystidia varying in abundance, cylindrical to almost clavate, septate, staining in sulfovanillin

 

 

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