As I have got something else I should be doing but don’t want to do
, I’ll procrastinate and answer this instead.
Most of the species on your list I would not put under the microscope to identify them with reasonable confidence and, although you might think of them as brown, subtle or not-so-subtle colour differences can help in differentiating them. For many of them, I wouldn’t be relying on the tree association to point me in the right direction e.g. I’d be looking at colour of cap, gills and stem, overall size, colour of the milk and any colour changes on exposure to the air, taste of the milk and any distinctive smell. Tree associates might be helpful at a later stage for some species to increase confidence in the identification. But I’m sure you know all this and most of what follows.
Most of the species have sufficiently distinctive characters that they can be separated from the others in your list in the field. However, there are other species which might more easily be confused with them. Without writing an essay, here are some thoughts.
Lactarius hysginus – I’d be struggling to recognise this because I am not familiar with it. I’d know it was something odd and would have to take it back to do more work on it.
Lactarius decipiens – I don’t know this species but you should be able to pin it down easily from overall appearance and the distinctive smell, described as of pelargoniums.
Lactarius tabidus – if I find a specimen that is about the right size, overall shape and colour, the first thing I will do is to test the milk on a white handkerchief (cotton or tissue). If it turns yellow then I’d be confident it is
L. tabidus. If there is no colour change and it has a more-rubbery smell, then it is
Lactarius subdulcis, although I would already be thinking as much, because the two species do actually look different. Also, sometimes you might find a specimen that looks… let’s say ‘
tabidus-ish’ but something is not quite right e.g. colour or size. And the milk turning yellow is then not enough to confirm the identification e.g. the milk can go yellow in
L. fulvissimus or
L. lacunarum but both of these would have more intense cap and stem colours (more orange-brown or reddish-brown). (FNE2 includes
Lactarius britannicus within
L. fulvissimus.) There is also
Lactarius rubrocinctus to consider but the milk would not turn yellow and it tends to be a larger species.
L. mitissimus is a
Lactarius tabidus-sized species but the cap and stem have distinctive orange tones, a character that separates this species from the others relatively easily, when you get your eye in.
Lactarius obscuratus – this is such a small species that your problem would not be confusing it with the other
Lactarius species on your list, but recognising it as
Lactarius in the first place. Then you would need to distinguish it from the other tiny species that grow in a similar habitat.
L. quietus,
L. glyciosmus and
L. camphoratus have sufficiently strong field characters that I would probably recognise them before I picked them, and then confirm by smell. If the smell wasn’t there, I might have been mistaken, so I’d have a rethink e.g. my suspected
L. glyciosmus might actually be a smallish
L. vietus.
A brownish species growing with conifers with a smell like
L. quietus would point to
L. hepaticus, and this could be confirmed by checking that the milk turned yellow on a handerchief, to separate it from possible look-alikes.
L. uvidus – Purple milk is the key for this one, but I would want to distinguish this from other species with milk that turns purple.
Lactarius pyrogalus and
Lactarius circellatus have distinctive features that, for me, make them recognisable in the field, and taste of the milk and tree associate would then confirm the identification.
Oh. It turned into any essay.
Ken
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