Species details
Stinking brittlegill
Russula foetens
Inedible
Photo: Szabi237 · CC BY 3.0 · Photo source · License
Description
A yellow-brown slimy brittlegill with a strong unpleasant smell and distinctly striate margin.
Identification features
Taste is strongly acrid, gills and flesh may stain brownish; it is inedible.
Identification checklist
Check the entire fruitbody for identification. A yellow-brown slimy brittlegill with a strong unpleasant smell and distinctly striate margin. Taste is strongly acrid, gills and flesh may stain brownish; it is inedible. Typical habitat: Deciduous and mixed woodland, often with oak and beech.
Detailed features
- Cap
- 8–15 cm, hemispherical to convex and later depressed, ochre-yellow to brownish; margin coarsely striate, surface slimy when wet.
- Hymenophore
- Gills pale ochre, initially crowded, later thicker and more widely spaced, often forked and brown-spotted.
- Stem
- 4–8 × 1–2 cm, cylindrical, pale ochre with brown spots; may become hollow with age.
- Flesh
- Whitish, brittle and browning in air.
- Smell
- Strong and unpleasant, often musty or fetid.
- Taste
- Acrid; tasting is not recommended.
- Spore print
- Almost white.
Size
- Cap diameter
- 8–15 cm
- Stem height
- 4–8 cm
- Stem diameter
- 1–2 cm
Habitat
Deciduous and mixed woodland, often with oak and beech.
Fruiting period
July, August, September, October, November
Ecology
- Trophic mode
- Mycorrhizal
- Substrate
- Forest soil, Grassland
- Notes
- A mycorrhizal species of mixed woodland, often growing at woodland edges in moss and grass.
How to separate similar species
Compare especially with these similar species: Russula ochroleuca, Hebeloma crustuliniforme. Check the combination of cap shape and colour, spore-bearing surface, stem, flesh changes and habitat. A single feature or photograph is not enough; if the key characters do not match the description, do not treat the identification as confirmed.
Similar species
- Ochre brittlegill (Russula ochroleuca)
Ochre brittlegill is usually less robust, more evenly yellow and lacks the strong unpleasant smell and coarsely striate margin.
- Russula grata
Almond brittlegill can have a similarly striate cap, but often smells more almond-like than strongly fetid.
Interesting facts
Did you know? The epithet foetens literally refers to the fetid or unpleasant smell, one of the species’ key characters.