Russula vesca    Fr. 

common name(s) : The Flirt, Bare-toothed Brittlegill, Edible Russula 

New classification: Basidiomycota/Agaricomycotina/Agaricomycetes/Incertae sedis/Russulales/Russulaceae  
Former classification: Basidiomycota/Homobasidiomycetes/Agaricomycetideae/Russulales/Russulaceae  

synonyms: Russula heterophylla-vesca 

edibility : edible, good

photo gallery of  Russula vesca
photo gallery of  Russula vesca potential confusions with  Russula vesca toxicity of Russula vesca genus Russula  

The cap is with variable shades : Bordeaux to brown (never violet); its margin is striate when mature. The cap surface is smooth, viscid in wet weather.

The stem is white sometimes washed with yellow, without ring.

The flesh is unchanging; its taste is mild; the odour is not distinctive; its texture is grainy (breaking like a chalk stick).

The gills are white, adnate to decurrent, crowded (nb of gills per 90° ~ 39 ). The spore print is white. This species is mycorrhizal. It grows on the ground, in broad-leaved and coniferous woods, on a rather acid soil, with oak, beech, birch, chestnut, pine, spruce.

The fruiting period takes place from May to December.
Dimensions: width of cap approximately 8 cm (between 4 and 17 cm)
  height of stem approximately 7 cm (between 2 and 10 cm)
  thickness of stem (at largest section) approximately 20 mm (between 10 and 30 mm)

Chemical tests : flesh becoming quickly salmon pink when in contact with iron sulphate; faint purple reaction of cap cystidia to sulpho-vanillin.

Distinctive features : cap colour resembling Old rose or ham pink; surface of cap shrinking and retreating with age 1 or 2mm away from margin, showing gills; gills rather thick, flexible and fragile; flesh with nutty taste, turning orange pink when in contact with iron sulphate

Russula vesca is frequent and present everywhere in the forest of Rambouillet, and is frequent, more generally speaking .
here should be the distribution map of Russula vesca in the forest of Rambouillet
Above : distribution map of Russula vesca in the forest of Rambouillet



page updated on 14/01/18