a Russula .. Species ??

Growing on wood
cap convex
Gills Adnate
Spores are white and definitely spiny
Stem breaks but not clean like chalk
.............Scroll Down For More Pictures ..........



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It was growing on a stump under Doug Fir

Scroll down for more pictures

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Cap is convex.

Note the mushroom on the right end is at least a different species

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Stem breaks but not quite like chalk

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Gills are adnate

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Gills are NOT saw tooth

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Spore Print is white,
this image is on a black paper background

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Spores are definitely spiny
They are round
6 to 7 Microns

JR said:

"Yes, it does look like a Russula, and depending on the cap skin characters, and taste (just a little bit on the tongue will tell you, and no, it won’t poison you) can determine the species. In these really white Russulas, the cap skin will peel, and how much toward the center, plus how rubbery it is determines whether it is R. farinipes (slightly rubbery, peeling 1/4 to 1/3 of cap diameter) and bites back when you taste it –quite hot and peppery; or if cap skin thicker, peeling at least half way or more, it is probably R. crassitunicata. This sp. can have brownish spots of flecks on the stem when older. It usually is a good sized sp. as your photo shows. R. farinipes generally stays really white, has a more gracile (slender, more fragile) stature, crumbling more than clean breaks, and has some cap margin striations, and is hot like cayenne peppers. R. cremoracolor is also hot, larger like crassitunicata, cap peels a bit, and cap surface creamy, almost yellowish, and stem firm but breakable, looking more dry. Your photos are interesting and quite good. In the first one, the “line-up” shows the peel-ability of the cap surface, and with the spotting on most of the specimens thinks it R. crassitunicata. Your end specimen is some other species and also probably a different genus too. In close looks at the stipe, tho they are broken, the outside of them has the dry denseness of R. crassitunicata as well. R. farinipes has a more watery-looking, almost translucent-looking stipe surface, even when dry. The only way to tell for sure is to use Melzers’ on the spores to compare drawings of the spines and ridges between these, and look at the cystidia – some have longer roots that go deep in the fleshing, showing their close affinity with some of the Lactarius genus.

...stipe breakability questions. Russula stipes usually break like the blackboard chalk our teachers used – the fatter kind, not the skinny kind. But if weather is wet, then all bets are off, because the mix of cell types (both longer narrow hyphae plus the rounded, inflated cells that create its breakability, absorb a lot of water. But your photo shows that there are no long strings of hyphae, such as you would find in a Pholiota or Tricholoma. Some of the descriptive terms used in the keys are very general, and are not absolute for all species within a genus.

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