Lactarius fumosus Pk.
Cap 3-10cm across, broadly convex with a shallow depression at the disc, becoming flatter with the margin irregular, sometimes waved, lobed, or ribbed; pale yellowy brown or coffee-colored and tinged with smoky patches; dry, dull, at times minutely cracked in older specimens. Gills adnate to decurrent, crowded, narrow; pale becoming dirty yellow-buff, bruising reddish. Stem 40-110 x 6-15mm, stuffed with a pale pith that stains slower than gills; same color as cap or gills, with a whitish base; dry, dull. Flesh pale slowly changing to pink. Latex milk-white, unchanging, staining cut surfaces reddish. Odor slight. Taste variable; either peppery fading to mild, mild slowly becoming strongly acrid, or slowly and faintly burning. Spores globose to subglobose, amyloid, 7.4-8.7 x 7.4-8.7µ; ornamented with ridges and forked ridges forming a broken reticulum, prominences 0.6-2μ high. Deposit pinkish buff. Habitat in grassy soil in open woods. Found widely distributed in eastern North America. Season July-October. Not edible. Comment This mushroom is very similar to Lactarius fuliginosus (Fr.) Fr. of Europe.