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[ Basidiomycota > Russulales > Russulaceae > Russula . . . ] Russula species 04 by Michael Kuo, 2 October 2025 Occasionally I have seen a green shrimp russula associated with high-elevation conifers in the Rocky Mountains. Like other shrimp russulas, it features a shrimpy odor and has surfaces that stain brownish when bruised, along with a stem that turns green with iron salts. What sets it aside is its color scheme: a green cap that becomes dark green to greenish brown with maturity, set above a gorgeous, pink stem. It is quite possible that the mushrooms featured on this webpage do not actually represent a separate phylogenetic species; russulas are notorious for developing wildly variable cap colors (see Bazzicalupo et al. 2017), and these may just be green versions of Russula olympiana, which is usually purple to red. The green "species" has not been sequenced for DNA study, to my knowledge. Still, the high-elevation "green xerampelina" appears often enough that it is familiar to Rocky Mountain collectors, so I am documenting its occurrence. Description: Ecology: Mycorrhizal with high-elevation conifers; growing gregariously; July and August; distribution uncertain. The illustrated and described collections are from Chaffee, Jefferson, Lake, and Larimer counties, in Colorado. Cap: 5–11 cm; convex becoming planoconvex; bald; dry; cuticle peeling easily about halfway from the margin to the center; green at first (sometimes mottled with brownish, yellowish, or purplish shades), becoming dark brownish green to greenish brown; the margin not lined. Gills: Broadly attached to the stem; close; short-gills infrequent or absent; creamy, becoming dull yellow at maturity; bruising and discoloring slowly brownish. Stem: 4–8 cm long; 1.5–3.5 cm thick; club-shaped, becoming equal or remaining a little enlarged toward base; dry; bald; pink, or pink towards the apex and whitish below; bruising brownish on handling when fresh. Flesh: White; staining brownish to brown when sliced. Odor and Taste: Odor strong, shrimp-like; taste not distinctive. Chemical Reactions: KOH orange on cap surface. Iron salts on stem surface grayish green. Spore Print: Dull yellow. Microscopic Features: Spores 9–11 x 7–10 µm including ornamentation; broadly ellipsoid; ornamentation as amyloid, isolated, sparsely packed warts 0.5–1.0 µm high, with very few connectors; not reticulate. Basidia 40–48 x 9–12 µm; clavate; 4-sterigmate. Pleurocystidia 60–70 x 8–10 µm; fusiform or subcylindric, often with mucro; smooth; thin-walled; contents granular; hyaline in KOH. Pileipellis an ixocutis; elements 2–5 µm wide, smooth, brownish yellow in KOH; pileocystidia not found. REFERENCES: Herb. DBG ROMO 2012 5026-10, DBG-F-029402 (CMS-2018-0231). Herb. Kuo 08171411, 08121503. This site contains no information about the edibility or toxicity of mushrooms. |
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Cite this page as: Kuo, M. (2025, October). Russula species 04. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/russula_species_04.html |