Summary:
{See also Red Russulas Table for the red variant.} We are not aware of genetic evidence that this species occurs in the Pacific Northwest: Russula pseudotsugarum, Russula obscurozelleri and Russula zelleri have been mistaken for this species. Russula cessans is characterized by small to medium size, a dark purplish to reddish, viscid cap with a separable cap skin, unchanging flesh, a short white stem, mild odor and taste, an ocher spore deposit, spores that are partially to completely reticulate, and highly differentiated pileocystidia. The description is quite similar to that of several species in the Russula zelleri group, some of which may have rather distant gills.

Cap:
3-7cm across, fleshy; "dark purplish red, livid purple, wine color or brick, center often darker"; viscid drying matte, margin even, peeling halfway, (Woo), 2-4.6(6.8)cm across, "convex, soon with depressed center, very frequently and almost characteristically subumbonate to umbonate in the depression"; "dull vinaceous purple to purplish crimson, often with olive color between the margin and the disc which is either brown or blackish purple"; viscid at least when young, sometimes very viscid, slightly shining to opaque on margin and somewhat opaque to shining in center when dry, cap skin peeling about one half of the radius, margin usually becoming tuberculate-sulcate when old, sometimes inconspicuously, sometimes conspicuously so, occasionally becoming slightly and finely rimulose [finely cracked] in marginal zone, (Singer), 3-8cm across, convex soon flattened; deep crimson to purplish red, often darker at the center; smooth, dry, peels halfway, (Phillips), 5-9.5cm across, "dark red to deep red to dark purplish red to as pale as brownish vinaceous on the disc, with paler colors toward the margin", "colors usually mixed but any color may predominate, occasionally with pallid areas irregularly distributed, unchanging in color when bruised", (Thiers(3))

Flesh:
white; unchanging, (Woo), "rather firm at first but soon becoming soft, spongy, and fragile"; white, unchanging, or becoming slightly sordid inside old stems, (Singer), white (Phillips)

Gills:
somewhat broad; white then cream and finally ochraceous, (Woo), adnexed to subfree, attenuate-free or rounded to emarginate, "crowded to subdistant, most frequently close to subclose", equal or rarely with few subgills, narrow to medium broad but not broad, usually 0.2-0.4cm broad when cap is 2-3.6cm across, anastomosing, simple or occasionally forked; "whitish, then cream color, then yellow to ochraceous", (Singer), fairly close, pale ocher, (Phillips)

Stem:
short, firm; white, (Woo), 2-6cm x 0.4-1.4cm, rarely longer or broader, equal, narrowing or widening downward, or ventricose [wider in middle], solid, then stuffed or stuffed-hollow; white, either remaining so or becoming slightly sordid-cinereous-glassy when old; bald, subrugulose [somewhat wrinkled], (Singer), 3-5cm x 1-2cm, equal, white, (Phillips), white with no flushes of other colors, unchanging when bruised, (Thiers(3))

Odor:
none (Woo, Singer), not distinctive (Phillips)

Taste:
mild (Woo, Phillips), "mild or rarely slightly bitter-markish", (Singer)

Microscopic spores:
spores 8-9 x 7-8 microns, ornamentation Patterson-Woo type C-2, (Woo), spores 7.8-13 x 6.4-10.3, mostly 9.2-10 x 7.7-8.3 microns, ornamentation 0.8-1.4 high, mostly 0.8-1 microns; basidia 4-spored, 30-48.5 x 9.8-13.5(16.5) microns, clavate; macrocystidia scattered to numerous, 32-60 x 7-12 microns, always blue in SV over upper half or more, clavate to fusoid or ventricose, "sometimes ampullaceous, often appendiculate, subacute or rounded if not appendiculate", on edge slightly more cystidia than on faces; cap epicutis: among the gelatinized hyphae are numerous dermatopseudocystidia of the macrocystidia type, 40-277 x 5-8.5(12.2) microns, blueing strongly with SV, "all with granular to mostly banded contents, not to sometimes septate, varying from rather narrow to broad and conspicuous", hypodermium "a cutis of filamentous hyphae, pigment intracellular and pale purplish to beautifully amethyst purple (NH4OH)"; hyphae without clamp connections, (Singer), spores 7.5-9.2(11.5) x 6.5-7.5(8.5) microns, (Romagnesi), spores 8-9 x 7-8 microns, elliptic, warts 0.6-1 microns, many connectives forming a partial reticulum, (Phillips), spores 7-9.5 x 6.4-7.8 microns, oval to nearly round to subelliptic, ornamentation "of isolated heavy warts, heavy ridges and connectives often forming a partial or complete reticulum", warts 0.5-1 micron high; basidia 2-spored and 4-spored; hymenial cystidia scattered to rare, 56-69 x 6-10 microns, "somewhat inconspicuous, projecting from the hymenium, fusoid to subcylindric to subclavate with an obtuse to narrowed, elongated terminal appendage"; cap cuticle 80-120 microns thick, epicutis "a broad trichodermium of tangled to suberect hyphae with scattered, highly differentiated pileocystidia", (Thiers(3))

Spore deposit:
ocher, Crawshay G, (Woo), slightly deeper than Crawshay G, usually between G and H or reaching H, (Singer), deep ocher, Crawshay G, (Phillips), yellow (Thiers(3))

Notes:
This European species has been reported from eastern North America by Singer and Phillips. It was included in the Pacific Northwest key of Woo(1), and it was reported by Grund(2) for Washington, Roberts, C.(2) for British Columbia, and Thiers(3) for California. There are collections from BC at the University of British Columbia by Oluna Ceska and Marty Kranabetter labeled as this species. Other collections from BC by Anna Bazzicalupo were mostly labeled Russula cf. cessans, and in Bazzicalupo(2) she says that Russula cessans has not been recorded from the Pacific Northwest. Singer(8) examined collections from Michigan, Austria, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (England). Phillips(1) reported it from New Jersey.

EDIBILITY

yes (Phillips)