Purple-bloom Russula

Appearance

Cap: 2-7 (-10) cm; convex when young, becoming broadly convex to flat with a shallow depression; dry; when fresh with a whitish bloom or dusting; purple to purplish red, or reddish, pinkish, or even olive, yellow, or brown--sometimes mottled with several of these shades; the margin usually lined by maturity; the skin peeling fairly easily, usually more than halfway to the center.

Gills: Attached to the stem or beginning to run down it; close or crowded; sometimes forking; white but soon cream colored to pale yellow; occasionally with pinkish edges from contact with the stem in the button stage.

Stem: 2-6 cm long; .5-2 cm thick; usually flushed pink or purplish; dry; fairly smooth, but feeling greasy or sticky to the touch.

Flesh: White; unchanging when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Odor oily; taste mild, slightly acrid, or oily and unpleasant.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap surface orange. Iron salts on stem surface negative.

Spore Print: Creamy to pale yellow.

Microscopic Features: Spores 6.5-8.5 x 5.5-8 µ; usually globose or subglobose; warts and ridges up to 1.2 µ high; connectors usually forming partial to complete reticula. Pileipellis a cutis underneath a turf-like layer; the uppermost hyphae septate, with the sub-terminal cells barrel-shaped and the terminal cell clavate, cylindric, or (more commonly) elongated-fusiform; clearly differentiated cystidia (aside from the fusiform hyphal ends) absent; elements hyaline to faintly purplish in KOH.

Distribution

Widely distributed east of the Rocky Mountains.

Habitat

Mycorrhizal with hardwoods, especially oaks; growing scattered to gregariously; common and frequently encountered; late spring to fall;