Pirate brittlegill or Purple brittlegill

The cap is 3–8 cm across, occasionally up to 10 cm. It starts convex, soon flattens and finally becomes depressed in the centre.

The colour is violet, dark purple, lilac or wine-red, sometimes greyish pink. The centre is darker at first but soon fades to dirty pink, olive or yellowish, often with bright yellow spots. A form with an entirely yellow cap has also been described.

In wet weather the skin is slightly greasy, but it dries quickly from the margin and then looks matt and velvety, as if dusted. The skin peels easily, about a third of the way to the centre.

The cap is 4-9 cm across, convex with an inrolled margin when young, becoming flat and spread out with a slightly sunken centre with age. The skin is smooth, slimy in wet weather, and peels back over 1/2 of the cap. The colour is dark purple, wine-violet, with a distinctive blackish centre (hence atropurpurea), paler pinkish-violet toward the edge. Old caps fade to a dingy purple, and mature ones have fine radial grooves at the margin.

The gills are cream or pale yellow at first and a rich ochre-yellow when mature. They are fairly crowded, becoming more distant with age, attached to the stem and joined by cross veins near the base.

The spore print is pale yellow to ochre. A white print points to a different russula, such as the charcoal burner or the purple brittlegill.

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

The stem is 3–8 cm tall and 1–2 cm thick, cylindrical or slightly club-shaped. It is pure white, rarely pinkish, and yellowish in wet weather.

Young stems are firm; old ones become chambered or hollow, especially at the base. There is no ring and no volva.

The stem is 3-7 cm tall and 1-2 cm thick, firm and cylindrical, hollow in old ones. It's white to cream, often with grey or grey-purple patches lower down. The surface is smooth with fine lengthwise wrinkles. No ring.

The flesh is white, yellowing with age and lilac just under the cap skin. It is brittle, as in most russulas, and does not change colour when broken. Field guides describe the taste as mild and sweetish.

The flesh is firm, brittle and white, and slowly turns slightly grey when damaged. The smell is faint, pleasant, fruity-mushroomy; the taste is mild in young ones, slightly acrid-bitterish in the gills and stem of mature ones.

The key feature of the species: the base of the stem smells of iodoform, an old-fashioned antiseptic. The smell stays at the bottom of the stem and is not always obvious, so it is worth checking several specimens. The cap and gills have no particular smell.

Faint, pleasant, fruity-mushroomy, neutral.