A slimy, pale lilac to lilac-brown milk cap of damp birch, aspen and willow woods. Its white latex stains all damaged tissue lilac to purple. The name probably covers a complex of related taxa across Europe and North America.
Not recommended. It is generally considered poisonous, though some older sources class it as edible with reservations. First Nature lists it as inedible and possibly poisonous.
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Habitat
Mycorrhizal with aspens and birch in eastern North America, sometimes reported under conifers; in Europe mainly under willow and birch on acid soils in damp woodland; summer to autumn.
Distribution
Europe and North Africa; infrequent in southern Britain, more common in Scotland and northern Europe. In eastern North America, fairly common from about the 41st parallel northward, also reported from the southern Appalachians. The western North American counterpart is usually called Lactarius montanus. Whether North American material is the same species is unconfirmed.
Characteristics
Cap: 3-10 cm, broadly convex with an inrolled margin, becoming shallowly depressed; slimy or sticky when fresh, bald; purplish to pale drab lilac, darkening to lilac brown; zones absent or faint. Gills: broadly attached to shortly decurrent, close, white becoming pale tan, staining and bruising purplish. Stem: 3-7 cm long, 0.6-2.5 cm thick, equal, smooth, slimy when young, whitish, often yellowish-stained near the base, hollow with age. Flesh: white, firm, staining lilac. Latex: white, becoming creamy, staining all surfaces lilac. Odor: not distinctive or slightly fruity. Taste: mild to bitter, never strongly acrid. KOH: green on the cap. Spore print: pale cream to pale yellowish. Spores: 7.5-11 x 6.5-8.5 µm, broadly ellipsoid, with broad ridges forming an incomplete reticulum.
