wood blewit

Description:

This mushroom can range from lilac to purple-pink. Some North American specimens are duller and tend toward tan, but usually have purplish tones on the stem and gills. The gills are attached to the short, stout stem. Mature specimens have a darker color and flatter cap; younger ones are lighter with more convex caps. Wood blewits have a very distinctive odor, which has been likened by one author to that of frozen orange juice. Wood blewits can be confused with certain purple Cortinarius species, many of which may be poisonous. Wood blewits can be easily distinguished by their odor, as well as by their spore print. Wood blewits have a light (white to pale pink) spore print; Cortinarius species produce a rusty brown spore print after several hours on white paper

Habitat:

The wood blewit is found in Europe and North America and is becoming more common in Australia, where it appears to have been introduced. It is a saprotrophic species, growing on decaying leaf litter

Notes:

Clitocybe nuda (also recognized as Lepista nuda and Tricholoma nudum, and commonly known as the wood blewit), is an edible mushroom, found in both coniferous and deciduous woodlands. It is a fairly distinctive mushroom which is widely eaten, though there is some caution about edibility. Nevertheless it has been cultivated in Britain, Holland and France