Russula foetens

What You Should Know

Russula foetens is a common Russula mushroom found in deciduous and coniferous forests. The cap is hemispherical and very slimy when young, soon convex, honey yellow to ochre brown, and up to 10 cm (4 in) in diameter. The gills and spores are pale creams. The strong stem is white or blotchy yellowish brown. The flesh has a strong acrid smell when old has a fishy smell and bad taste.

This is an inedible mushroom and is considered by many authorities to be a toxic toadstool. When gathering mushrooms for food the Stinking Brittlegill should therefore be avoided.

Other names: Stinking Russula.

Russula foetens Mushroom Identification

1. Cap

   5-10 cm diameter, at the first firm, becoming fragile, at first nearly globose, expanding and becoming plane to slightly depressed, yellowish or dingy ochraceous, glabrous, viscid, pellicle separable part way to the disk, margin widely and coarsely tuberculate-striate.

2. Flesh

   Thin, rather fragile, dingy white, yellowish under the pellicle, taste acrid, odor strong, resembling bitter almonds, then fetid.

3. Gills

   Adnexed, rather close, broad, at first whitish, becoming yellowish with age and dingy when bruised, exuding drops of water when young, some forked.

4. Stem

   5-12 cm high, 1.5-4 cm thick, equal or slightly tapering downwards, veined, white or dingy brown in age or when bruised, stuffed, becoming hollow.

5. Spores

   Hyaline, globose to subglobose, 8-10 x 7-9 µm, ornamented with warts.

6. Spore Print

   Pale yellow.

7. Habitat

   Gregarious on the ground in mixed woods, summer to autumn. Common.

8. Chemical Test

   Flesh salmon-pink with FeSO4.

Russula foetens Look-Alikes

1. Russula grata

   Typically smaller but otherwise very similar to Russula foetens; it smells much more pleasant, of bitter almonds.

2. Russula illota

   A rare species and considered by some authorities as a subspecies of Russula grata, is also similar in appearance, habitat and season.

Russula foetens Medicinal Properties

Antitumor effects. Polysaccharides extracted from the mycelial culture of R. foetens and administered intraperitoneally into white mice at a dosage of 300 mg/kg inhibited the growth of Sarcoma 180 and Ehrlich solid cancers by 70% (Ohtsuka et al., 1973).

Russula foetens Taxonomy and Etymology

The Stinking Brittlegill was described in 1796 by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon, who established its currently accepted scientific name Russula foetens.

Synonyms of Russula foetens include Agaricus foetens Pers.

Russula, the generic name, means red or reddish, and indeed many of the brittlegills have red caps.

The specific epithet foetens means stinking (as in foetid, or fetid as some prefer to spell it).

Sources:

Photo 1 - Author: Szabi237 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported)

Photo 2 - Author: Nina Filippova (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International)

Photo 3 - Author: Nina Filippova (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International)

Photo 4 - Author: Nina Filippova (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International)

Photo 5 - Author: Tatiana (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International)