Wood BlewitCollybia nuda

Fresh specimens are violet to lilac across the cap, gills and stem, fading towards buff or brown with age. The spore print is pale rather than rusty brown. The smell is often sweet or fruity.

In leaf litter in broadleaved and mixed woodland, hedgerows, parks and piles of decaying leaves.

Mostly from autumn into early winter, often continuing until hard frosts.

If the description above leaves you unsure, do not guess from memory and do not compare by eye with a picture off the internet. Our photo identifier shows several likely candidates with percentages, and names the dangerous lookalikes if there are any — rather than one confident answer.

Fruits from early September to late November.

This species may not be picked (see «Caution» below), so storing and cooking do not belong here. If you find one: photograph it where it stands, do not cut or dig it up, and remember the spot for your own records — the mycelium fruits there year after year.

Edible when correctly identified and thoroughly cooked; do not eat it raw. Several violet webcaps can look similar, and some Cortinarius species are seriously poisonous. Rusty-brown spore deposits or a cobweb-like veil are warning signs, but beginners should not use the absence of those features as proof that a mushroom is a Blewit.

Nothing on this page is an expert opinion, and nothing here confirms that the mushroom you found is edible. Photo identification in this service is a probabilistic hint, not permission to pick or to eat.