Species flashcards

Description

Cap: 3–7(9) cm across; convex when young, later spreading and often depressed at the centre. The margin is infolded and sometimes irregularly wavy. Olive-grey to pale olive-green, often with concentric darker spots or zones towards the margin; very slimy when wet.

Gills: Dense and adnate. White when young, later pale cream; they may become greyish brown when damaged.

Stem: 3–6 cm tall and 1.5–2.5 cm thick, cylindrical, firm and smooth. Usually cap-coloured, but paler at the apex and base.

Flesh: Firm and whitish. Latex abundant, white, later turning grey; its taste is hot and acrid.

Spores: Spore print cream. Spores ellipsoid, ornamented with low warts and partly connected ridges, 6–9 × 5.5–7 µm.

Occurrence: A mycorrhizal species from early summer to late autumn, chiefly in hornbeam-beech and beech woodland. It is particularly associated with beech.

Edibility: Not edible; unsuitable for consumption because of its hot latex.

Lookalikes: It may resemble the pale milkcap, which has more distant, darker gills and a less greenish cap. Confusion with darker-capped milkcap species associated with hornbeam is also possible.

Note: Lactarius derives from the Latin „lac”, meaning milk, referring to the latex released when damaged. blennius derives from the Greek „blennos”, meaning mucus, referring to the characteristically sticky, slimy cap surface.

Species description: Elias Magnus Fries first described the species in 1815 as Agaricus blennius, then transferred it to Lactarius in 1838.

Taxonomy

1. PhylumBasidiomycota
2. ClassAgaricomycetes
3. OrderRussulales
4. FamilyRussulaceae
5. GenusLactarius

• Species: Lactarius blennius
• Authority: (Fr.) Fr. (1838)
• English name: Slimy milkcap
• Ecological status: mycorrhizal
• Edibility: not edible