Species flashcards

Description

Cap: Medium-sized, convex or flattening, 4-14 cm wide. White base with grayish pink, red, lilac-red, purple-lilac blurred spots. Occasionally, especially at the edge, it may have yellow spots. Often streaky mottled, as if painted with brush strokes. Its surface is barely sticky. Its margin is infolded.

Gills: Slightly decurrent, hardly sparse and not thick. White, but reddening, becoming red-spotted. Spore print white.

Stem: Short, stocky, solid, rarely very thick, only 3-10 cm long, but 1-3 cm thick. White, pinkish, reddish cloudy spotted. Finely granular, scaly on top.

Flesh: Very thick in both cap and stem. White, locally slightly pinkish-red. Taste good, slightly astringent raw, smell not significant, leaf litter smell.

Spore: White; 8-9 x 6.5 µm; elliptical or oval, smooth.

Occurrence: In deciduous forest soils in autumn, late, until frosts, found abundantly in some years in certain places. Grows in groups, but young specimens are often still covered by thick leaf litter.

Edibility: Very good edible mushroom, very tasty prepared in any way. Dries well and rarely wormy.

Confusion: Similar to the locally rare blushing waxy cap, but it grows in coniferous forests, and its cap is covered with purple-pink scales. Furthermore, its flesh is yellowing and bitter-tasting. The russula-like waxy cap should not be confused with some similarly colored parasol mushroom species.

Note: The literature knows six related species, four of which are considered rare or extremely rare. Of these, only the russula-like and the blushing waxy cap have been found here. russula means reddish, reddening.

Species description: Agaricus russula (Schaeff). 1774, Gymnopus russulus (Fr.) Gray 1821, Tricholoma russula (Schaeff.) Gillet 1874.

Taxonomy

1. PhylumBasidiomycota
2. ClassAgaricomycetes
3. OrderAgaricales
4. FamilyHygrophoraceae
5. GenusHygrophorus

• Species: russula
• Described by: (Schaeff.) Kauffman
• Hungarian name: vörösfoltos csigagomba
• Lifestyle: mycorrhizal
• Edibility: edible