Summary:
Russula sphagnophila is often umbonate (unusual for a Russula), and Sphagnum habitat is notable (but it is also found on forest humus). Other features include a viscid, tuberculate-sulcate cap that is purplish red or rosy red, often with olive or brown on parts, a cap skin that peels up to 2/3, white unchanging flesh, whitish then pale ochraceous gills, a white stem flushed red or pink, a mild odor and taste, and a cream spore deposit. |European mycologists accept this species in a larger more robust version with less emphasis on the light olive brown margin, a darker spore deposit, and a larger spore size, (Woo). But note the remeasuring of type''s spore size by Singer who found spore size close and regards this as a circumpolar species on the basis of examining European and North American specimens. |Singer''s description of American material below is derived from Singer(8) p. 247, except where indicated. |Russula sphagnophila is not yet confirmed by DNA from the Pacific Northwest. |R. sphagnophila has some characters in common with the Russula puellaris group in which the flesh and often stem have been described as turning yellowish, but the yellowing reaction is not prominent in this species - the group includes R. versicolor, R. sapinea, R. puellaris, R. abietina, R. blackfordiae, and R. brunneoviolacea.

Cap:
up to 4.5cm across, umbonate; purplish red or rosy red at center surrounded by olive brown shading to pale olive margin; viscid drying smooth, margin slightly striate, (Woo), 2-4.5cm across, convex, then depressed, always umbonate, very fragile; purplish red or rosy red at center, the space between umbo and margin pale olive brown; viscous [viscid], margin slightly striate, (Kauffman), 3-5cm across, "convex and often umbonate, soon depressed in the center and even then often with a slight umbo in the depression, sometimes umbilicate at the same time", eventually flat to concave; very variable in color, "oxblood red" to "Vandyke red" with "diamine brown", sometimes partly bleached, and the center sometimes with black, brown, or olive tints; viscid and shining when wet, bald, smooth, not shining or slightly shining when dry, cap skin separable over one half to two thirds of radius, obtusely rounded margin becomes sulcate [grooved] early and remains deep and long tuberculate-sulcate, (Singer(8)), "very dark vinaceous purple to brownish purple to brownish violet centrally, lighter purple towards the margin, fading to brownish pink to greyish olive on the margin and olive to yellow-brown or grey-brown over the disc, with a duller brown or grey zone between", (Roberts, C.)

Flesh:
fragile; red next to surface, otherwise white, (Woo), fragile; reddish under the cap skin, (Kauffman), soon rather fragile; white, eventually sometimes light cream or glassy colorless-sordid in base of stem but not tending to become ochraceous yellow or brown, not graying, reddening, or otherwise changing color, (Singer(8))

Gills:
close, narrow, few forking; white, then pale yellow, (Woo), adnato-decurrent, rather close, narrowed toward both ends, a few forking; white then pale ochraceous, (Kauffman), sinuate-adnexed, attenuate-subdecurrent, or subfree, typically moderately close to distant, e.g. 60-70 long gills, slightly ventricose and rather broad, more or less anastomosing, sometimes strongly forked; whitish, soon pale ochraceous, not changing color on bruising, (Singer(8))

Stem:
very fragile; rose-colored, (Woo), 4-5cm x 0.7-1.2cm, usually ventricose [wider in middle] or irregularly swollen, spongy-stuffed then hollow, very fragile; rosy colored; subpellucid (almost transparent), rivulose-uneven, (Kauffman); 2.8-4.8cm x 0.6-1.2cm, ventricose-subequal, ventricose or widening downward, solid, soon spongy; "white, with a strong flush of pink or pinkish red either all over or, more often, over part of the surface, most frequently near the base, not tending to become yellow or gray but sometimes slightly banana-flesh color to glassy-hyaline-sordid near the base"; subrugulose or rugulose [more or less finely wrinkled], (Singer(8))

Odor:
none (Woo, Singer(8))

Taste:
mild (Woo, Kauffman, Singer(8))

Microscopic spores:
spores 8.5-11 x 7.7-9 microns, ornamentation Patterson-Woo type C-2, (Woo), 6-7 x 6-7 microns, round, echinulate [finely spiny], (Kauffman), spores of type remeasured at 8.5-11 x 7.7-9 microns by Singer(1), spores 8.5-9.7 x 7-8.5 microns or 9.5-13 x (7.5)8-9.5 microns, according to print, some macrospores up to 15 microns long, ornamentation 0.9-1.5 microns, "of type IV and V in some prints many of type VI or IIIb present, always some with IV-II-lines or VI-VIII-chains present"; basidia 28-44 x 8.5-14.2(15.5) microns; macrocystidia rather numerous, blue in SV, more rarely rather scattered, 43-68 x 8.5-11.8 microns, with abundant banded contents, fusoid-ventricose, often with very long appendages; cap epicutis consisting of hyphae and dermatopseudocystidia that are well individualized, scattered to numerous, blueing in SV, their basal part often septate and constricted at septa, not all with banded contents, not very long if well differentiated, up to 10 microns broad, some scattered hyphal ends transformed into primordial hyphae and then slightly incrusted; all hyphae without clamp connections, (Singer(8)), spores 8.2-10.2 x 6.3-8.2 microns, narrowly to broadly elliptic, ornamentation of bluntly conic warts 0.5-1.1 microns high, "often a mixture of heavy warts with finer ones interspersed, mostly isolated or 2-4-catenate, or warts joined by a heavy lines, on some spores catenations will run almost the length of the spore, fine lines occasional, these plus catenations forming a partial reticulum", Patterson-Woo types B2-3 to C2-3; cutis 100-110 microns thick, an ixotrichodermis of two distinct layers, subcutis around 1/2 the depth of the cutis, compactly interwoven, hyphae 1.5-2.5 microns wide, "repent and more or less parallel, occasional vascular hyphae weakly greying in SV", epicutis of erect, colorless to pinkish hyphae 1.5-4 microns wide, and abundant pileocystidia, hyphal ends "undifferentiated, occasionally obtuse, or most often with a tapering terminal cell that sometimes ends in a small button", pileocystidia abundant, 28-80 x 6-10 (13) micron, the majority around 40-60 microns long, "clavate to cylindroclavate, 0-5-septate, only the shorter ones aseptate, most 2-3-septate, sometimes constricted at the septa, contents pale yellow, refractive, often only partially filled, greying in SV, sometimes only weakly", (Roberts, C.)

Spore deposit:
cream, Crawshay D-E, (Woo), cream (Kauffman), Crawshay (D-)E when fresh, in herbarium reaching tone between E and G, (Singer(8))

Notes:
Russula sphagnophila was reported by Grund for WA. Roberts, C.(2) reported it from Vancouver Island in BC. Kauffman reported it for MI. Singer examined collections from MI, NY, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Sweden, USSR, and Asia.

EDIBILITY