Species details
Wood blewit
Lepista nuda
Conditional / expert preparation
Photo: Albarubescens · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photo source · License
Description
A violet to brown-violet gilled mushroom with crowded gills and no ring or volva.
Identification features
The colour fades with age and the spore print is pale pink. Confusion with violet webcaps is possible, so several characters must be checked.
Identification checklist
Young fruitbodies are violet to lilac across cap, gills, and stem, but the colour fades to brownish tones with age. The cap is fleshy, gills crowded, and the spore print pale pink. It often has a sweet, perfumed smell and grows in woodland litter.
Detailed features
- Cap
- 5–15 cm, initially convex then flattening, smooth; distinctly violet when young, often fading to brownish tones with age.
- Hymenophore
- Gills are crowded, violet to lilac-grey, without rusty-brown spore deposit.
- Stem
- 6–10 × 1–2 cm, violet, fibrous, often slightly thickened and mycelium-covered at the base.
- Flesh
- Pale violet to greyish, firm in young fruitbodies.
- Smell
- Distinctive pleasant, somewhat perfumed or fruity smell.
- Spore print
- Whitish to pale lilac.
Size
- Cap diameter
- 5–15 cm
- Stem height
- 6–10 cm
- Stem diameter
- 1–2 cm
Habitat
In woodland litter, compost, gardens, and parks, often in groups or rings.
Fruiting period
September, October, November, December, January
Ecology
- Trophic mode
- Saprotrophic
- Substrate
- Forest soil
- Notes
- A saprotroph in leaf and needle litter, compost and other organic-rich ground; often grows in arcs or fairy rings.
Distribution
- Notes
- A widespread European woodland and park species, especially in the cooler part of the year.
How to separate similar species
Violet webcaps have a cobweb-like cortina when young, later producing rusty-brown spores and rusty deposits on gills or stem. Lepista sordida is usually smaller, thinner, and more intensely violet.
Similar species
- Violet webcap (Cortinarius violaceus) DANGEROUS
Purple webcaps have a cortina when young and later rusty-brown spore deposit; wood blewit has no cortina.
Interesting facts
Did you know? The violet colour is strongest in young fresh fruitbodies and can fade markedly with age.