A pinkish to salmon, faintly zoned birch milk cap with a shaggy, woolly, inrolled margin. Its white latex does not change color and is very acrid. It is common wherever birch grows in northern temperate and boreal regions.
Poisonous raw. It causes nausea, vomiting and severe diarrhea starting about an hour after eating; the acrid compound velleral is thought responsible. In Finland and Russia it is eaten after parboiling, brining or pickling, but many authorities treat it as poisonous. Do not eat.
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Habitat
Mycorrhizal, most commonly with birch, also reported with hemlock and aspen; in damp places on acid soils, open grassy woodland edges, heaths and urban sites with birch; late summer to autumn.
Distribution
Northern temperate and boreal zones, sometimes subarctic: Europe, northern Asia and North Africa. Wikipedia describes it as common in North America, north to Yukon and Alaska and south to Mexico. First Nature says only that a variety is reported from North America, so the identity of North American material may need confirmation.
Characteristics
Cap: 5-15 cm, convex becoming flat with a slight central depression; buff to pink or salmon with faint darker concentric zones; woolly, especially at the inrolled margin. Gills: crowded, shortly decurrent, pale pink. Stem: 4-8 cm long, 1-2 cm thick, paler than the cap, downy and solid when young, becoming smooth and hollow; no ring. Flesh: white, brittle. Latex: white to pale cream, unchanging, very acrid. Odor: slight, of turpentine. Taste: hot and acrid. Spore print: pale yellowish cream. Spores: 8-10 x 5.5-7 µm, subglobose to broadly ellipsoid, with a network of ridges and a few warts.
