Russula acuminata

What it is

Russula acuminata is a brittlegill, a gilled mushroom with brittle flesh. Its cap is about 4 cm across, spreading and slightly sunken at the centre, with a strongly grooved margin and a wine-red to purplish surface whose skin can be peeled. The stem is about 5.5 cm long and 0.6 cm thick, smooth, without a ring, purple to greyish pink and hollow. The gills are fairly widely spaced, thin, white with a greyish-pink edge. The flesh is white with no odour and a mild taste, and the spore print is white.

The species was described by Buyck in 1988 and illustrated in 1994. Its spores are subglobose with a strongly amyloid, nearly complete net-like ornament, and clamp connections are absent. These features separate it from other red and purple brittlegills, which the catalogue does not discuss.

How to recognise a brittlegill

A mushroom is a brittlegill, a Russula, only when several features line up. The cap is usually brightly coloured. The gills are brittle: they snap when you try to bend them, and the flesh breaks cleanly like chalk instead of tearing into fibres. The stem carries no ring and no cup or sack at its base, and there are no veil remnants on the cap. The gills are attached to the stem, and a spore print is white, cream or dark yellow.

Two checks separate Russula from its look-alikes. Break a gill or cut the flesh: a brittlegill gives no milky juice, while a milkcap (Lactarius or Lactifluus) weeps latex. Then look at the stem. A ring on the stem, a cup or a sack or bulb with torn remnants at its base, or flesh that tears in fibres points away from Russula and towards Amanita, a genus that includes the deadly death cap and many other poisonous species. A mushroom with a ring or a cup at the base is not a Russula, whatever colour its cap is.

Recognising the genus is much easier than naming the species. Cap colour varies widely inside one species, so experts rely on the colour of the spore print, the taste, colour changes in the flesh, how far the cap skin peels, chemical tests and the microscope. A collector who is sure of the genus but not of the species should treat the species as unidentified.

The taste test, and what it cannot tell you

Foragers have long sorted brittlegills by taste. Break off a small piece of cap flesh or gill, chew it for several seconds and spit it out without swallowing; the burn of an acrid species can take half a minute to build. Brittlegills that taste mild are the traditional edibles. Those that taste hot, peppery or acrid, and many bitter ones, are left alone because they irritate the stomach and bowel and can cause vomiting and diarrhoea.

The method works only inside the genus. Use it once the mushroom is positively a Russula, never to decide whether an unknown mushroom is safe: the deadliest mushrooms do not taste unpleasant, and a mild taste says nothing about an Amanita, a Cortinarius or any other family. Within Russula it is a screen for rejecting species, not proof of safety. Some mild species are poor eating, rare species are poorly documented, and a few brittlegills have been linked with poisoning. Cook what you eat, start with a small portion, and identify to species where you can. This record is not a field guide.

Habitat and distribution

It grows in humid, dense forest in association with tree roots, which makes it an ectomycorrhizal species that cannot be cultivated in the way saprotrophic mushrooms can. The record in the sources covers Cameroon and DR Congo. The catalogue describes the species as a humid-forest ectomycorrhizal fungus gathered from the wild.

Food status and safety

The catalogue lists African brittlegill in an institutional edible-fungi inventory for Cameroon and DR Congo. The Edible Fungi of Tropical Africa page on the species does not state whether it is edible or toxic, and it gives no warnings or look-alikes. The page should be read as a description of the species, not as an edibility rating.

Preparation, identity and current safety all need separate validation. This page does not establish that Russula acuminata is safe to eat, and no preparation on this page makes an unidentified mushroom safe. Identify the whole specimen with a specialist before any use.