Lactarius turpis
English: Ugly milk-cap.
German: Olivebraune milchling; Tannen-Reizker, Olivbrauner Milchling.
Synonym: Lactarius necator.
Synonym: Lactarius plumbeus; Lactarius necator; Agaricus necator; Agaricus plumbeus.
Name: turpis, from the Latin, means ugly; Latin for plumbeus is lead-coloured.
Region: Europe, Siberia; introduced in Australia, New Zealand.
Habitat: especially with birch, also with spruce, pine; mixed woodland.
Content: mutagen necatorin (=7-hydroxycoumaro(5,6-c)cinnoline), reduced by boiling, but not eliminate it.
Use: inedible; as a spice in mushroom dishes in northern and eastern Europe and Siberia; preserved in salt.
Mycology
Appearance: characteristic messy, dirty; collect debris on top; very variable.
Cap: 8 to 20 cm in diameter; margin involute; somewhat depressed centre; olive brown or yellow-green, later blackish; sticky or slimy in the middle; velvety zones and shaggy at the rim, when young. Later it becomes funnel-shaped.
Gills: crowded, dirty white, stained olive-brown by old milk, which is initially white on contact with the air; somewhat decurrent. With potassium hydroxide or ammonia there is a purple reaction; flesh is a dirty white, turning dirty brown, due to discoloured milk.
Stipe: 7 cm tall; 3 cm diameter; similar in colour to the cap, but much lighter; with shallow pits (scrobiculae).
Taste: acrid; little smell.
Spores: 7 by 6 µm; ornamented with a pattern of ridges.
Taxonomy
Lactarius olivaceo-umbrinus is similar, growing Pacific Northwest conifer forests, as well as Sitka spruce forests, individually, with stronger olive-brown colour on its cap and stipe, with dark spots on the latter.