Rosy brittlegill or Bloody brittlegill

The cap is 5-12 cm across, convex with an inrolled margin when young, later flattened with a slightly depressed centre. The skin is firm, dry, matte and faintly velvety-felty, and peels only with difficulty and incompletely, if at all. The colour is intensely pink, coral-pink or red-pink, with characteristic cream-coloured faded patches, deeper in the centre. Old caps fade markedly to cream, with pink patches surviving only at the edges.

The cap is 4–10 cm across. Young caps are domed, then convex, later flat, sometimes with a shallow dip in the centre or saucer-shaped.

The colour is blood red, wine red or purplish red. As it ages the cap fades unevenly, with pink, cream or almost white patches. It is matt when dry and sticky with a silky sheen after rain. The skin holds tight and only peels as a narrow strip at the edge. That's a useful clue: on the sickener you can peel the skin almost to the centre.

The gills are adnate or free, moderately crowded, thin and brittle. They're white at first, turning cream with a pale ochre tinge with age. The spore print is creamy white.

The gills are fairly crowded, narrow and brittle, often forked near the stem. They are attached to the stem or run slightly down it, which few red brittlegills do. They start white or cream and turn straw-coloured or pale ochre.

The spore print is cream to pale ochre. A pure white print points to the sickener; a deep ochre one to the hintapink or Russula integra.

The stem is 4-7 cm tall and 1.5-3 cm thick, very firm, fleshy and cylindrical, with a small cavity in old mushrooms. It's white, often with a faint pink tinge toward the base or along its whole length. The surface is dry and matte with fine lengthwise wrinkles. No ring.

The stem is 3–7 cm tall and 1–3 cm thick, cylindrical and firm, sometimes hollow in old specimens. There is no ring and no volva.

The key feature of the species is the stem colour: a pink, wine-red or red flush, strongest towards the base, with fine lengthwise streaks. Young stems can still be white, and old ones turn greyish pink with a yellowish base. A pink stem alone doesn't prove the species, since the hintapink, the rosy brittlegill and the crab brittlegill can have one too.

The flesh is very firm, fleshy, brittle and pure white, and doesn't change colour when cut. The smell is pleasant but nondescript. The taste is mild and sometimes slightly bitter, according to field guides. We don't advise tasting mushrooms to identify them.

The flesh is white and firm, reddish under the cap skin, sometimes yellowish at the stem base, and yellows a little with age. It barely changes colour when broken and has no milk. Field guides describe the taste as hot, peppery and often bitter, milder in the stem. There's no need to taste mushrooms: the other features are enough to identify it.

Pleasant but nondescript.

The smell is faint and fruity, sometimes hardly noticeable. It lacks the strong crab or herring smell of the crab brittlegill.