Flesh: white to cream, brittle and with foetid-oily smell. Spore-print: pale cream-colour. Common in deciduous woods. ~R. mairei~ Singer _Cap_: width 30-75 mm. _Stem_: width 7-15 mm; length 35-70 mm. Cap: scarlet red but developing creamy areas with age, dry. Stem and gills: white but with a distinct although faint greenish grey flush, the former fairly firm. Flesh: white. Spore-print: pure white. Commonly accompanying beech, even individual trees in gardens. ~R. nigricans~ (Mérat) Fries Blackening russula _Cap_: width 75-200 mm. _Stem_: width 15-35 mm; length 25-75 mm. Cap: cream-coloured then flushed sooty brown, finally black as if scorched by proximity to bonfire. Stem: white then dark brown. Gills: pale ochre reddening when bruised, thick and very distant. Flesh: white slowly dull red on cutting then brown and finally changing soot-colour after some time. Spore-print: white. Common in deciduous woods. ~R. xerampelina~ (Secretan) Fries _Cap_: width 50-140 mm. _Stem_: width 15-30 mm; length 40-60 mm. Cap: deep blood-red or brownish red. Stem: white with a flush of red towards the base. Gills: cream then ochraceous. Flesh: white staining brownish and smelling strongly of fish- or crab-paste, and staining dark green when a crystal of green iron sulphate is rubbed into it. Spore-print: deep cream-colour. Common in mixed woods; a very variable fungus with many colour-forms, but easily recognised by the green reaction with ferrous sulphate. ~Lactarius turpis~ (Weinm.) Fries Ugly milk-cap _Cap_: width 60-200 mm. _Stem_: width 10-25 mm; length 40-75 mm. _Description_: Cap: firm, convex usually with a central depression at maturity, dark olive-brown or dark greyish olive with a yellow-tawny, woolly margin when young which soon disappears, and the whole cap becomes sticky with age and turns deep purple when a drop of household ammonia is placed on it. Stem: short, stout, similarly coloured to the cap except for the distinctly ochraceous apex, slimy and pitted. Gills: crowded, cream-coloured to pale straw-coloured, but soon spotted with dirty brown, particularly when bruised. Flesh: white or greyish ochre exuding a milk-like liquid which lacks a distinct smell and is white and unchanging when exposed to the air. Spore-print: pale pinkish buff. Spores: subglobose or ellipsoid and covered in a network of strongly developed, raised lines interconnected by finer ones, both of which stain blue-black in solutions containing iodine, generally 8 × 6 µm in size (7-8 × 6-7 µm). Marginal cystidia: lance- or spindle-shaped and filled with oily contents. Facial cystidia: similar to marginal cystidia. _Habitat_ & _Distribution_: Common in woods and copses, or on heaths especially in boggy places but always where birch is growing.