Hintapink or Bloody brittlegill

The cap is 5-15 cm across (large and fleshy), hemispherical when young, becoming flat and spreading with a slightly depressed centre. The skin is smooth, shiny and slimy in wet weather, dry and matte in dry weather, and peels 2/3 of the way to the centre. The colour is bright red or blood-red with a distinct orange or ochre tint, richer in the centre. Mature caps have fine radial grooves at the edge.

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 attached or free, crowded, fleshy and brittle, whitish at first, becoming cream-yellowish to ochre-cream with age. The spore print is yellow-cream to ochre, a diagnostic feature that sets it apart from the white print of R. emetica.

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 5-10 cm tall and 1.5-3 cm thick, firm, fleshy and cylindrical, thickening toward the base. It's whitish, often with a characteristic pink or reddish tint lower down, which is a diagnostic feature. The surface is smooth with fine lengthwise wrinkles. There's 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 firm, brittle and white, slowly turning yellow when cut (a reaction typical of the genus Russula). The smell is distinctly fruity and pleasant, with a hint of apple in young mushrooms, and the taste is mild and sweetish-nutty, with no bitterness or acridity at all, a diagnostic feature.

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.

A distinct, pleasant fruity, apple-like smell, especially in young mushrooms. No unpleasant notes.

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