Bot. Char. Veil fibrous or floccose, fugacious; stalk generally solid, firm, fleshy, attenuated upwards, scaly, fibrillose or striate; pileus fleshy, compact, campanulate or depressed, convex; margin attenuated, at first involute, shagged with woolly fibres or lanugo; gills unequal, obtuse behind, emarginate; flesh white and unchangeable.
Esculent species: Ag. prunulus and Ag. personatus.[123]
Subgenus 6. Russula[124] (Scop.).
Bot. Char. No veil; stem smooth, equal, glabrous, strong, white, spongy within; pileus at first campanulate, then hemispherical, in age depressed, fleshy in the centre, thin at the margin, which is never reflexed at any period of growth, the epidermis bare, smooth, occasionally sticky in wet weather; gills juiceless, mostly equal, occasionally forked, the short ones few, rigid, brittle, broad in front, behind narrow, acute, properly free but apparently adnato-decurrent, from the effusion of the stem into the pileus; flesh firm, dry, white, moderately compact, brittle; sporules white or ochraceous; gills white or yellow.
Large or middle size, persistent, solitary funguses, growing on the ground.
Esculent species: Ag. heterophyllus, virescens, and ruber.
Acrid species: Ag. emeticus, sanguineus, and alutaceus.
Subgenus 7. Galorrheus.[125]
Bot. Char. No veil; stalk equal, round, solid, effused into the pileus; pileus fleshy, compact, generally umbilicate, margin even, when young involute; gills unequal, sometimes very thick, often forked, narrow, attenuated behind, brittle, connected by a prolonged tooth to the stalk, down which they are slightly decurrent; flesh firm and juicy, distilling milk.
Esculent species: Ag. deliciosus and piperatus.