Russula xerampelina (Schaeff.) Fr. |
The cap is bright blood red to Bordeaux, almost black at the centre; its margin is striate when mature. The cap surface is smooth, a bit viscid in wet weather. The stem is white washed with purple red, without ring. The flesh is white, turning brown when exposed to air; its taste is mild; the odour is of cooked seafood, herring or of iodine; its texture is grainy (breaking like a chalk stick). The gills are yellowish to buff, free to adnate, distant . The spore print is dark cream to pale ochre. This species is mycorrhizal. It grows on the ground, in broad-leaved and coniferous woods, on a rather acid soil, most of the time with pine, but also with spruce, fir, Douglas fir. The fruiting period takes place from July to December.
Chemical tests : flesh becoming dark greenish when in contact with iron sulphate; negative reaction of cap cystidia to sulpho-vanillin. Distinctive features : Blood-red to dark red cap, with a darker centre; smell of cooked crab, especially for old specimens; stem and flesh getting brown when touched; stem slightly veined; edge of gills purple red; flesh reacting green to iron sulphate Russula xerampelina is infrequent and widely present in the forest of Rambouillet, and is frequent, more generally speaking . | ||
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page updated on 14/01/18