Lactifluus gymnocarpoides

Overview

Lactifluus gymnocarpoides is a milkcap of the family Russulaceae that grows in open forest and miombo in West, Central and Southern Africa. It is ectomycorrhizal, forming a root partnership with several legume trees and with Uapaca.

The species is named in the inventories as an edible milkcap. Its taste is bitter, and local cooks have methods for removing the bitterness, which this page does not reproduce as a recipe.

Names and taxonomy

The species was described as Lactarius gymnocarpoides by Verbeken in 1995 and moved to Lactifluus in 2012. The catalogue searches it under the older name and keeps the name as a research label rather than a reconciled accepted name.

The English label African milkcap is also used for other species, so this page uses the scientific name.

Habitat and distribution

The species grows in open Uapaca forest and in miombo, with a broad ecological range. The EFTA inventory lists records from Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The taxonomic revision reports that the species is common in Haut-Katanga and apparently not recorded as food in Tanzania or Zambia. The range record and the food record therefore differ in detail.

Food use and preparation

The species is recorded as food in Haut-Katanga, and the catalogue lists food-use contexts in Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi and the DR Congo.

The taste is bitter, and the latex is slightly bitter. In many countries, local people use various techniques to remove the bitterness. The sources do not describe those techniques, so this page gives no preparation steps.

Identification and safety

The species is separated from the similar Lactifluus gymnocarpus by the gill and latex colour. Lactifluus medusae is often confused with it: L. medusae has a coloured gill edge and longer terminal elements in the pileipellis, over 100 to 120 micrometres against about 60 to 70 in this species. Lactifluus longisporus and L. pumilus are smaller species that the EFTA page also lists as lookalikes.

One Zambian specimen illustrated in a 2015 paper has brown-stained gills and resembles L. gymnocarpus, so it may have been misidentified. The EFTA page gives no separate edibility verdict for this species.

This page is not an identification guide. Milkcaps are identified by microscopic features as well as colour, and the sources do not give a poisoning record. Do not eat a wild milkcap on the basis of this page. Confirm identity with an expert before eating any wild fungus.

Open questions

The sources do not give the preparation used to remove the bitterness, a recipe, or nutritional data. The record for Tanzania and Zambia is in conflict between the range list and the taxonomic revision.