Plant 2 in. high. Pileus 1.5–2 in. broad. Stem 3–6 lines thick. Dry ground in woods. Catskill mountains. July.
The minute colored granules, which give the pileus a soft pruinose appearance, are easily rubbed off on paper, and water put upon the fresh specimens is colored by them. Peck, 24th Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
New York, Peck, 24th and 50th Rep.; West Virginia, 1882–1885; Mt. Gretna, Pa., solitary in mixed woods. July to September. 1897–1898. McIlvaine.
It is on a par with most Russulæ.
R. ochra´cea Fr.—ochra, a yellow earth. Mild. Pileus about 3 in. across. Flesh rather thick at the center, becoming thin toward the margin, pale ochraceous, soft; convex then expanded and depressed, margin coarsely striate, pellicle thin, viscid, ochraceous with a tinge of yellow, disk usually becoming darker. Gills slightly adnexed, broad, scarcely crowded, ochraceous. Stem about 1½ in. long, 5–7 lines thick, slightly wrinkled longitudinally, ochraceous, stuffed, soft.
Spores globose, echinulate, ochraceous, 10–12µ diameter.
In pine and mixed woods.
The mild taste and ochraceous color of every part, including the flesh, separate the present from every other species.
Commonly confounded with Russula fellea, but known at once by its mild taste. Agreeing most nearly with R. lutea in color, but differing in the softer flesh, which becomes ochraceous upward; sulcate margin of the pileus, and broader, less crowded gills. Pileus persistently ochraceous, disk usually darker. Stem sometimes yellow, sometimes white. Fries.
North Carolina, borders of woods, Curtis; California, Harkness and Moore.