Wood blewit

Description

The wood blewit is a medium-sized mushroom with a cap 5–14 cm, smooth, bright violet when young, pinkish-violet, brownish and finally ochre with age. The gills are crowded, violet at first, and the stem is solid, thickened and violet at the base. The flesh smells pleasant and spicy.

It grows in late autumn, sometimes in early spring, on litter in forests, especially beech and spruce forests, but also on meadows and compost heaps, usually in groups, sometimes in rings. In Poland it is fairly common, but it is listed on the Red List as vulnerable.

The violet colour and white spore print distinguish it from webcaps, which have a rusty spore print and remains of a cortina under the cap. If in doubt, do not collect or eat it.

Identification features

Cap

Diameter 5–14 cm (descriptions also give 4–15 cm). Long-arched with an inrolled margin when young, then slightly convex or flat. Cuticle bare, smooth, not water-absorbing. Colour changing with age: bright violet when young, pinkish-violet, then brownish-violet or red-brown, ochre in old age; according to some descriptions from lilac to violet-pink, in North America it can be duller, buff.

Hymenophore (underside of the cap)

Gills crowded, thin, attached, notched with a tooth; very violet when young, then brown-ochre.

Stem

Height 5–10 cm (descriptions also give 2–6 cm), thickness 1–3 cm, cylindrical, solid, slightly fibrous-downy on the outside, usually club-shaped thickened at the base and violet-felted. Colour bright violet at first, later grey-violet. No ring.

Flesh

Fleshy, hard and violet when young, soft and cream in a mature fruiting body. Taste slight, pleasant; smell characteristic, pleasantly spicy (according to some descriptions compared to frozen orange juice), rarely absent. Tasting unknown mushrooms is not recommended.

Spore print and spores

Spore print white with a slight pink tint. Spores broadly ellipsoid, slightly warty, colourless; size 6–8 × 4–5 µm (given only in some descriptions).

Habitat and distribution

Ecology. A terrestrial saprotroph, grows on litter (most often in beech and spruce forests, also on meadows and compost heaps), usually in groups, sometimes forming fairy rings. In Australia associated with some eucalypts and with broom.

Distribution. The whole temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere, also Australia and Africa (Europe and North America); common in Central Europe. In Poland Red List (2006): V (vulnerable). Not legally protected in Poland; it is on the list of mushrooms approved for sale (Ministry of Health, item 12).

Fruiting. Usually late, at the end of the mushroom season, sometimes in early spring; in Great Britain from September to December.

What can it be confused with?

• Cortinarius traganus (gassy webcap) — inedible — Flesh yellow, bitter, with an unpleasant smell; rusty-brown cortina or its remains.
• Cortinarius violaceus (violet webcap) and other blue or violet webcaps, including Cortinarius camphoratus — Webcaps have remains of a cortina under the cap, ring-like marks on the stem and a rusty-brown spore print. Many of them are poisonous.
• Collybia sordida (dingy violet funnel) — Much smaller.
• Collybia brunneocephala, Clitocybe tarda, Laccaria amethysteo-occidentalis, Lepista subconnexa — Similar; detailed differences — no data.

Never rely on a single feature. If you are not sure — do not pick it; show the mushroom to a qualified mushroom expert.

Interesting facts

• In 2023 the species (together with the related Collybia personata) was moved to the genus Collybia; earlier it was described as Tricholoma nudum, Lepista nuda and Clitocybe nuda.
• In Australia it was observed that a male satin bowerbird, which decorates his bower with blue objects, collected fruiting bodies of this mushroom for it.
• Bulliard noted in 1790 that it had been confused with the violet webcap, but it has a "bare" cap without a cobweb-like cortina.
• The Polish name was given in 2003 by Władysław Wojewoda.