Shield Pinkgill Under Plum and Blackthorn: ID and Lookalikes

In Ukraine, spring mushrooms that grow under plum, blackthorn, hawthorn, apricot and pear trees go by the folk name pidslyvky, roughly “under-plum mushrooms”. Mycologists know them as pinkgills (Entoloma): above all the shield pinkgill (Entoloma clypeatum) and the paler Entoloma sepium (Ukrainian: ентолома живоплітна, “hedge entoloma”). They appear at the end of April and grow until June — in orchards, shelterbelts and hedgerows, that is, where there are almost no other mushrooms in May. That is why they are well known in villages.

Ukrainian handbooks regard the shield pinkgill as a tasty, conditionally edible mushroom that is boiled for 20 minutes. Western field guides are more cautious and advise against eating it. Both agree on one thing: the real danger is not the mushroom itself but the poisonous mushrooms that grow nearby and look like it.

What the shield pinkgill looks like

The shield pinkgill is a medium-sized mushroom:

• Cap 3–10 cm, grey-brown, with darker radial fibres and a low bump in the centre. As it dries it becomes much paler, so in the sun the same mushroom can look almost beige.
• Gills pale grey at first, then pink, dirty pinkish-brown in old mushrooms. Attached to the stem with a notch.
• Stem 3–5 cm, whitish, fibrous, with no ring and no volva.
• The spore print is pink. This is the most important feature of the pinkgill genus.
• Smell faint or mealy.

Entoloma sepium is similar, but has a cream-to-straw cap that is slightly greasy to the touch and a longer stem, on which reddish fibres are sometimes visible. Western field guides plainly advise avoiding it.

Our find in the garden

In May 2026 we found white mushrooms with wavy, almost crumpled caps in a garden, among weeds and pebbles. From above, a mushroom like this tells you nothing.

We turned it over and saw pink gills notched at the stem and a white, fibrous stem with no ring. The pink gills immediately ruled out St George's mushroom and pointed to a pinkgill, most likely Entoloma sepium. But spring pinkgills cannot be reliably told apart to species by eye, and some of them are poisonous. So we photographed these mushrooms and left them.

Is the shield pinkgill edible?

Here the sources disagree, and we won't pretend the answer is simple.

• The Ukrainian tradition. The classic Ukrainian handbook by Zerova, Yelin and Koziakov (1979) calls the shield pinkgill a tasty, conditionally edible mushroom that is boiled for 20 minutes. According to it, the species grows in Ukraine's Forest-Steppe and Steppe zones in May–June.
• Western field guides. First Nature rates its edibility as doubtful and advises against picking it because of its similarity to a poisonous pinkgill. Entoloma sepium is considered possibly poisonous there.
• We found no research on the toxicity of the shield pinkgill specifically. What is known is something else: many pinkgills cause severe digestive upset.

If you still pick these mushrooms, the way your family always did, take only those you are sure of down to the species, only from under fruit trees, and only after boiling. And the first time, go with someone who has known these mushrooms for many years.

What the shield pinkgill must not be confused with

The deadly fibrecap is the main danger.

The deadly fibrecap (Inocybe erubescens, in newer field guides Inosperma erubescens) is a deadly poisonous mushroom containing muscarine. The cap is 3–7 cm, conical, silky-fibrous, cracking with age. Its main feature is that it turns red: from the cap margin and wherever the mushroom has been pressed. The gills are whitish, then pinkish-brown, so at first glance they resemble the gills of a pinkgill.

What helps tell them apart is the spore print: in the fibrecap it is dull brown, not pink. The fibrecap grows under beech and hornbeam on limestone soils, at woodland edges. Its season begins in May–June, so the two may meet at the end of the shield pinkgill season.

Muscarine acts quickly: usually within 15 minutes – 2 hours, heavy sweating, drooling, tears, constricted pupils, a slow pulse and vomiting appear. The antidote is atropine, so emergency medical help is needed. What to do before the doctor arrives is covered in our article mushroom poisoning: signs and first aid.

Entoloma vernum.

Entoloma vernum (Ukrainian: ентолома весняна) is a small, dark brown pinkgill that grows in spring in grass and at woodland edges. Handbooks list it as poisonous. What sets it apart from the shield pinkgill is where it grows: it does not keep to fruit trees.

The livid pinkgill.

The livid pinkgill (Entoloma sinuatum) is poisonous: a large, pale grey pinkgill with yellowish gills that causes severe poisoning; deaths have been recorded. It is an autumn species, growing from August to October, so it does not occur in spring. But it is precisely because of it that Western field guides advise against pinkgills altogether: someone who got used to “grey mushrooms with pink gills” in spring may pick the poisonous one in autumn.

St George's mushroom.

St George's mushroom (Calocybe gambosa) grows at the same time and often in the same places. It is easy to tell apart: the gills are white, not pink, and the spore print is white too. How we told spring white mushrooms apart in our own photos is in the article spring white gilled mushrooms and their lookalikes.

How to check a shield pinkgill

The simplest and most reliable test is a spore print. Cut off the cap, place it gills-down on a sheet of paper that is half white and half dark, cover it with a glass and leave it for a few hours.

• Pink print — a pinkgill. From there, the tree it grew under, the cap colour and your experience decide.
• Brown print — a fibrecap or another brown-spored mushroom. Throw it away.
• White print — St George's mushroom or another white-spored mushroom. Then it is not a shield pinkgill.

And one more rule: the shield pinkgill is a mushroom of fruit trees. A similar mushroom from meadow grass, from a beech wood or from under hornbeam is not it.