Lactarius argillaceifolius

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Ecology: Mycorrhizal with oaks; growing alone or gregariously; spring (it is often one of the first mycorrhizal mushrooms to appear in oak-hickory forests), summer and fall; widely distributed east of the Rocky Mountains.

Cap: 3-18 cm; convex becoming flat or shallowly vase-shaped; drab cinnamon to drab lilac brown; without zones; bald or minutely pocked and rugged; sticky when fresh.

Gills: Beginning to run down the stem; close or crowded; cream colored when young, becoming dingy cinnamon with age; stained slowly brown (or rarely olive to greenish) by the latex where damaged.

Stem: 3-9 cm long; 1-3.5 cm thick; tapering to base; pale or brownish in age; dry or slightly sticky; smooth; without potholes.

Flesh: White; unchanging, or discoloring faintly tan.

Milk: Off-white; unchanging when exposed; staining tissues brown to brownish, or rarely olive to greenish; over time staining white paper yellow.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive to mildly fragrant; taste mild to slowly slightly acrid.

Spore Print: Pale yellowish.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap surface erasing pigments to pale orange or tan.

Microscopic Features: Spores 8-10 x 7-8 ; broadly ellipsoid or subglobose; ornamentation 0.5-1 high, composed of fairly isolated warts and ridges that sometimes form broken reticula. Pleuromacrocystidia fusoid-ventricose; to 100+ long. Cheilomacrocystidia similar but usually shorter. Pileipellis an ixolattice.

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