Blewits (maybe)
formal name: Tricholoma nudum (formerly Lepista nuda)
Note other names one finds in the references :
Wood blewit - Clitocybe nuda - was previously Tricholoma nudum
blewit - Clitocybe saeva - was previously Tricholoma personatum
St George's mushroom - Calocybe gambosa - was previously Tricholoma gambosum.
Posted by John 11/19/13
John: I went hiking on the 4 t's trail from the zoo to OHSU with my kids and found some mushrooms. PLease let me know if you can recognize some of these.
Judy: Take a spore print! If pale, whitish/pinkish, it would be a Tricholoma nudum (formerly Lepista nuda), but if brown spores, then it would by a Cortinarius.
An excellent article on Blewits can be found at:
http://honest-food.net/2011/01/10/blewits-blewits-everywhere/
Click Here for the article
That article includes the following:
- "Blewits have a standard “mushroom” shape: simple cap, a thick, stocky stalk, tight gills. There will be no ring or veil around the stalk.
- The cap should be smooth, almost suede-like. It will have leaf litter stuck to it from time to time, but it will never be slimy or viscid. Blewit caps are often beige to mauve. As the mushroom ages, the edges of the cap will get wavy.
- Look for the lilac or lavender color underneath the cap. The color on a blewit is concentrated on the gills, although the cap and stalk will be a little purple, too. The gills are close together.
- When you do a spore print — cut the cap off a mushroom and place it, gills down, on a white piece of paper — the spores should light in color, a whitish dull pink to pinkish beige. Their poisonous lookalike, the Cortinarius, has darker, rusty-colored spores.
- Blewits have a slight aroma, which I think smells like lilacs. David Arora in Mushrooms Demystified says they smell like frozen orange juice.
That article goes on to say:
"There are a few other blue-to-purple mushrooms around, but none that meet all these requirements. If you have a mushrooms with a suede-like cap, stocky stalk, tight, vivid purple gills, a slight but pleasant aroma and that has light, pinkish-tan spores, you have a blewit."
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