A light brown, dry-capped milk cap of wet conifer and sphagnum sites with scant, watery latex and a strong odor of curry, fenugreek or burnt maple syrup, especially when drying. The odor comes from sotolon. North American material has long been called Lactarius aquifluus. Whether it is the same species as the European L. helvus has not been settled by DNA work.
Poisonous; do not eat. European L. helvus is mildly toxic, especially raw or in quantity, causing nausea, vomiting, vertigo and chills, and caused a mass poisoning in Germany in 1949. The toxins are thought to be sesquiterpenes, not the sotolon that gives the odor. In Quebec the North American form is eaten cooked and sold dried as a spice, with no illness reported there, but this does not make it safe. See Safety in notes.
Never eat a wild mushroom based on a web page — confirm with an expert.
Habitat
Mycorrhizal with conifers (spruce, pine), less often birch, in boggy, wet ground, usually in sphagnum moss; summer and fall.
Distribution
Europe and Asia, as L. helvus. In North America, widespread and fairly common in the northeast from Nova Scotia to Minnesota, and also recorded from the southern Appalachians, Texas, Montana and Idaho. It is apparently absent from the Southwest and West Coast. North American material may prove to be a separate species.
Characteristics
Cap: 3-13 cm, convex with an inrolled margin, becoming flat or shallowly depressed; dry, smooth or finely velvety, becoming rough or sub-scaly; usually some shade of light brown. Gills: attached or slightly decurrent, close, often forked near the stem, whitish becoming dirty yellowish, not staining. Stem: 3-10 cm long, up to 2 cm thick, equal, dry, often orangish to pinkish brown with a thin whitish bloom. Flesh: pale pinkish or pale brownish, not staining. Latex: scant and watery, not staining. Odor: strong, of curry or burnt maple syrup, strongest when drying. Taste: mild or slowly slightly acrid. Spore print: creamy white to pale orangish yellow. Spores: 6-9 x 5-7.5 µm, broadly ellipsoid, amyloid ornamentation forming nearly complete reticula (MushroomExpert.com, North American material).
