14/10/2026
"Oh, the charcoal-burner has tales to tell!
And he lives in the Forest and knows us well."
A.A. Milne
We love fungi season and are sharing some of our sightings again this autumn.
Today we look at the ‘Charcoal burner’ (scientific name: Russula cyanoxantha) mushroom. Our Ranger spotted it and used lots of clues to identify it (below).
Mushrooms are not the entire organism, they are just the fruiting body of some fungi, where the spores spread from in order to reproduce. They are often misunderstood but fascinating: complicated but amazing to learn about.
There are many 'toadstools' or inedible/poisonous mushrooms which can look a lot like safe and delicious varieties but can make you ill by touching or eating them. They often have interesting common names from folklore or to explain these and other properties.
To correctly identify fungi takes a lot of expertise and we recommend beginners practice by photographing different parts of them (stem, gills underneath, cap) and note their size and where they are growing e.g. woodland, on a particular tree. There are lots of books to use for reference and we also hold Fungi walks each year where we will happily give you pointers...
ALL ABOUT THE CHARCOAL BURNER
This is a common mushroom named for its cap colour, which can look like a charcoal flame. It can have hues of blue, yellow, purple, lavender, violet, green, brown or grey.
The cap is dry, smooth, firm and fleshy and can be 5-15cm in size. It is initially rounded but flattens as it ages.
These mushrooms grow in association with broadleaved trees (usually beech or oak but sometimes birch and sweet chestnut) and can be found, frequently albeit usually solitary, from summer into autumn.
The fungi kingdom has different families in it and this type of mushroom is from the Russulaceae genus or ‘brittlegills’. There are many and they all have brittle flesh.
Normally, the Russulas’ come in a range of vibrant colours with firm white stems that snap like a piece of chalk due to the nature of their cellular structure (which also makes their gills brittle); However, if you scrape a Charcoal burner its crowded gills are firm and flexible so they won’t crumble and fall away like all of the other members of this family. The gills feel greasy to the touch. These are the key identifying features, as their colour varies greatly from one specimen to another, so may otherwise be confused with other inedible or toxic varieties. Just to make it more confusing, the stem does turn brittle when it is old though.
The stem is 5-10cm long and 1-3cm broad and white, sometimes with purple tints. Its spores are white.
If you spot fungi, please do log it on iNaturalist so that the Rangers can see what you find. 🍄
