Major Groups > Gilled Mushrooms > Pale-Spored > Russula > Russula flavida

MushroomExpert.Com

Russula flavida

[ Basidiomycetes > Russulales > Russulaceae > Russula . . . ]

by Michael Kuo

This beautiful mushroom is fairly common in the oak forests of eastern North America. Its dry cap and stem are bright yellow, and the cap margin is only faintly lined, if it is lined at all. Neither the bruised stem nor the sliced flesh turns grayish, and the taste is mild. Most other bright yellow species of Russula differ on one or more of these features.

Description:

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with hardwoods, especially oaks (occasionally reported under conifers); growing alone, scattered, or gregariously; summer through fall; fairly widely distributed east of the Rocky Mountains, but apparently more common in the southeast.

Cap: 2-8 cm; convex with an inrolled margin when young, becoming flat or broadly convex, often with a central depression; dry; smooth or finely velvety; bright yellow to orangish yellow; the margin not lined or faintly lined at maturity; the "skin" peeling easily from the margin about halfway to the center.

Gills: Attached to the stem; crowded or close; white becoming creamy to pale yellowish; not bruising or discoloring.

Stem: 3-8 cm long; 1-2.5 cm thick; dry; smooth or very finely velvety; colored like the cap overall, but paler toward the apex; not bruising; firm and stuffed, or becoming hollow with age.

Flesh: White; not changing when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste mild.

Chemical Reactions: KOH pale magenta on cap surface. Iron salts salmon on stem surface.

Spore Print: White to creamy or very pale yellow.

Microscopic Features: Spores 5-7 x 5.5-8.5 µ; elliptical or nearly round; warts mostly .3-.6 µ high; connectors frequent, forming partial or nearly complete reticula. Pileipellis a cutis beneath a turf-like upper layer of mostly erect hyphae, golden in KOH, often terminating in bundles of pileocystidia that are septate, cylindric to subfusiform, and negative in sulphovanillin.


REFERENCES: Frost, in Peck, 1880. (Saccardo, 1891; Burlingham, 1915; Beardslee, 1918; Kauffman, 1918; Bills & Miller, 1984; Phillips, 1991/2005; Metzler & Metzler, 1992; Halling & Mueller, 2005; Miller & MIller, 2006; Binion et al., 2008.) Herb. Kuo 06249401, 07290304.


This site contains no information about the edibility or toxicity of mushrooms.


 

Russula flavida

Russula flavida

Russula flavida

Russula flavida


© MushroomExpert.Com



Cite this page as:

Kuo, M. (2009, March). Russula flavida. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/russula_flavida.html