A pinkish-white woodwax spotted and streaked with darker pink to red, which bruises and ages yellow. It grows under conifers, especially spruce, and has fairly distant whitish gills that turn pinkish. It closely resembles the hardwood species H. russula.
North America from the Rocky Mountains to the West Coast and from Tennessee north to the Great Lakes and southern Canada; Scandinavia, central Europe, Russia, Turkey and Japan. Listed as extinct in Great Britain, with no records since 1878.
Characteristics
Cap: 4-8 cm, convex then flattening; whitish to light pink, dotted or streaked darker pink to red, darker at the center, bruising yellow; slimy to sticky. Gills: adnate to somewhat decurrent, distant to nearly distant, white becoming pale pink. Stem: 5-8 cm long, 0.8-1.5 cm thick, whitish with pink tones, yellowing. Odor and taste: not distinctive, odor sometimes pleasant. Spore print: white. Spores: 6.5-11 x 4.5-6.5 um, oval (Wikipedia).
