Russula vinacea

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Ecology: Mycorrhizal with oaks and hickories; growing alone, scattered, or gregariously; spring and early summer; probably widely distributed in North America east of the Rocky Mountains. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois.

Cap: 4-12 cm; convex, with an incurved margin when young; becoming broadly convex, flat, or shallowly depressed; slightly sticky when fresh, but soon dry; bald; usually reddish purple to purplish red when young, with a dark (blackish red) center--but sometimes merely dark red or brick red to liver red; often with mottled areas of yellowish or, more rarely, olive shades, especially toward the margin; the margin lined for about 1 cm by maturity; the skin peeling easily about halfway to the center.

Gills: Broadly attached to the stem; close or nearly crowded; white at first, becoming creamy or very pale yellow; not bruising; short-gills infrequent; not forked.

Stem: 3.5-8 cm long; 1-3 cm thick; equal; dry; bald; white when young and fresh; bruising a little brownish when fresh, especially near the base; discoloring watery gray with age and on handling; becoming hollow.

Flesh: White; unchanging when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste not distinctive, or slightly acrid.

Chemical Reactions: KOH erasing red on cap surface and becoming pale to bright orange. Iron salts pink on stem surface.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 7-9.5 x 5-6.5 ; ellipsoid; with amyloid warts and very thin ridges creating patterns and partial reticula; ornamentation mostly under 1 high. Pleuro-and cheilomacrocystidia fusiform to mucronate; hyaline in KOH; abundant; to about 75 x 12 . Pileipellis a cutis; pileocystidia abundant, cylindric with fusiform to subclavate, subcapitate, or constricted apices, ochraceous-refractive in KOH and positive in sulphovanillin, to about 100 x 10 .

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