How to tell Bloody brittlegill from Sickener

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 cap is 3-10 cm across, hemispherical when young, becoming flat and spread out with a slightly depressed centre. The skin is smooth and shiny, distinctly slimy in wet weather, dry and matte in dry spells. It peels off EASILY and COMPLETELY, all the way to the centre, which is a diagnostic feature. The colour is bright red, blood-red or raspberry-red, deeper in the centre; mature caps fade to pink with pale blotches. In mature mushrooms the margin has fine radial grooves.

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 gills are attached or free, crowded, thin and fleshy, and white to creamy white, turning cream with age. The spore print is white, a diagnostic feature.

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 stem is 4-8 cm tall and 1-2.5 cm thick, firm, fleshy and cylindrical, hollow inside in old mushrooms. It's pure white, often with a faint pinkish tint toward the base, with a smooth surface and fine lengthwise wrinkles. No ring.

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.

The flesh is firm, brittle and white, and doesn't change colour when cut. The smell is faintly fruity, like coconut, in young mushrooms and slightly unpleasant in mature ones; the taste is described in field guides as burning. We don't advise tasting mushrooms to identify them.

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

Faintly fruity, like coconut, in young mushrooms; neutral or slightly unpleasant in mature ones.