Edible and of good flavor. Macadam.
Raw, it has a raw, rather unpleasant taste and odor, a little like some acorns. But its firm, thick flesh, meaty gills and stem, and good flavor when well cooked, rank it equal to any.
R. albel’la Pk.—whitish. Pileus 2–3 in. broad, thin, fragile, dry, plane or slightly depressed in the center, even or obscurely striate on the margin, commonly white, sometimes tinged with pink or rosy-red, especially on the margin. Flesh white, taste mild. Lamellæ entire, white, becoming dusted by the spores. Stem 1–2 in. long, 3–4 lines thick, equal, solid or spongy within, white.
Spores white, globose, 7.6µ broad.
Dry soil of frondose woods. Port Jefferson. July.
Closely allied to R. lactea, but differing in its fragile texture, entire lamellæ, more slender stem, and in the pileus not cracking into areas. Peck, 50th Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
R. vires’cens Fr.—viresco, to be green. (Plate [XLIV], fig. 6, p. 184.) Pileus green, compactly fleshy, globose then expanded, at length depressed, often unequal, always dry, not furnished with a pellicle, wherefore the flocculose cuticle is broken up into patches or warts, margin straight, obtuse, even. Flesh white, not very compact. Stem solid, internally spongy, firm, somewhat rivulose, white. Gills free, somewhat crowded, sometimes equal, sometimes forked, with a few shorter ones intermixed, white. Fries.
Taste mild; good, raw.
Spores scarcely echinulate, almost globular, 6µ W.G.S. Spores 8–10µ Massee; 6–7.6µ Peck.
Cap round when young, very hard, then convex or becoming dished, sometimes repand. It is without a separable skin, covered with various sized areas of mouldy looking patches which are at times distinctly cracked. The color varies from a bright bluish-green to grayish-green, such shades remind one of mouldy cheese or the shades of Roquefort; again the color may vary in shades of light leather brown, occasionally the caps are almost white, opaque in each shade of color. Flesh crisp, brittle, thick, white, mild, good raw. Gills and stem as described.