Summary:
Clade Deliciosi. Lactarius rubrilacteus is characterized by the combination of orangish color, dark red milk that is never orange, even initially, and green staining of all parts with bruising or when old. Other features are a reddish brown to orange, orange-brown, or tan cap, often concentrically zoned with these colors, close gills that are vinaceous cinnamon to dull purplish red, stem colored like cap or paler and sometimes scrobiculate, growth under 2-needle and 3-needle pines and other conifers, and microscopic characters. For many years the name Lactarius sanguifluus was used for this mushroom. L. rubrilacteus is common in the Pacific Northwest.

Cap:
4-14cm across, "broadly convex with a depressed center and inrolled margin when young", depressed or shallowly funnel-shaped when old; reddish brown to orange, orange-brown, or tan, "or often concentrically zoned with these colors", duller and greenish-stained when old; viscid when moist, smooth, (Arora), 6-12cm across, disc depressed and margin inrolled when young, broadly vase-shaped when old; zoned richly carrot color to sordid orange with paler zones between, generally duller and paler when old, greenish stains or flushes developing when old; bald, viscid, (Hesler)

Flesh:
thick, brittle; brownish to buff, reddish, [becoming greenish], (Arora), thick, brittle; dingy yellowish white, staining greenish when old, (Hesler), MILK scanty; "dark red (but occasionally orange-red in old specimens)", [unchanging], "slowly staining wounded areas greenish", (Arora), scanty; in young caps dark blood red to purplish red, "often paler and dingy orange-red in mature caps", (Hesler)

Gills:
adnate to slightly decurrent, close; reddish or dull purplish red, "or tan with a dark reddish sheen", greenish where wounded, (Arora), adnate to short-decurrent, "close to crowded, narrow to moderately broad"; ''at first near "light vinaceous-cinnamon" to "light pinkish cinnamon" then dark dull purplish red beneath a hoary sheen (never truly carrot colored)'', when old stained greenish; edges even

Stem:
2-6cm x 1-2.5cm, equal or narrowed in lower part, firm, rigid, hollow; colored like cap or paler; sometimes scrobiculate, (Arora), 2-6cm x 1-3cm, narrowing downwards, hollow, firm and rigid; usually duller and paler than cap; sometimes scrobiculate, (Hesler)

Veil:
[none]

Odor:
becoming faintly aromatic after collection (Hesler)

Taste:
mild (Hesler), mild or slightly bitter (Phillips)

Microscopic spores:
spores 7.5-10 x 6-8 microns, elliptic to nearly round, amyloid ridges, (Arora), spores (from gills) 7.5-9 x 6-7.5 microns, broadly elliptic, [amyloid] ornamentation in the form or "a broken to partial reticulum and numerous isolated warts and short ridges", ornamentation to 0.3-0.5(0.7) microns high; basidia 4-spored, 55-60 x 8-10 microns; pleurocystidia: macrocystidia scattered away from gill edge, 45-75(90) x 4.5-6 microns, fusoid, acute, colorless, often with a subapical constriction, pseudocystidia "scattered, as narrow rounded filaments often with orange content", cheilocystidia abundant, 37-60(75) x 5-9 microns, acuminate, often widest near base (+/- fusoid-ventricose); cap cuticle a thick ixocutis; stem cuticle "an indistinct cutis of narrow appressed interwoven hyphae (not truly viscid)", (Hesler)

Spore deposit:
pale yellowish or buff (Arora)

Notes:
Material was cited in the original description from WA, OR, ID, CA, CO, and NM, (Hesler(4)). There are collections from BC at the Pacific Forestry Centre and the University of British Columbia. It also occurs in AZ, (Nuytinck(1)).

EDIBILITY

yes, texture granular, (Arora)