Stinking Brittlegill in Lincolnshire: the week ahead

Russula foetens

The map below is built from the measurement network. A 2.5 km grid with a per-species layer is computed for one region so far.

Today

Stinking BrittlegillEdible only after thorough cooking
Starting

confidence 48%

Flush phase

  1. Quiet
  2. Starting
  3. Building
  4. Peak
  5. Fading

Updated 18 September 2026, 11:37 BST

7 days

Index, day by day

Week's best 48on Fridayaverage 44by the weekend falling

Conditions are poor: even the week's best day only reaches «slow».

  1. Today4818 Sept
  2. Sat4619 Sept
  3. Sun4420 Sept
  4. Mon4321 Sept
  5. Tue4322 Sept
  6. Wed4323 Sept
  7. Thu4324 Sept

Map

Where to look: stinking brittlegill

A field over the measurement network. The colour here is for the leading species at each point, not for this one; a per-species layer is computed for one region so far.

About the species. British and most western field guides treat this mushroom as inedible. Raw it is acrid and causes stomach upset, and old fruitbodies smell of rancid oil or fish. In Russia, eastern Europe and Scandinavia it is salted, but only after the skin is peeled off and the young unopened buttons are soaked in several changes of water for days and then boiled. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to eat it.

Stinking Brittlegill: the species in brief

How to tell it

A large brittlegill with a cap of eight to twelve centimetres, up to fifteen in big specimens. It is spherical at first and then flat, ochre yellow to yellowish brown, and very sticky in wet weather. Once open, the cap margin is plainly striate, with radial grooves running in from the edge. The gills are cream and crowded and weep droplets in damp weather, leaving brown spots behind. The stem is white with brown blotches, six to twelve centimetres, and hollows out with age. The flesh is white, browns where cut, and is brittle: it crumbles like any brittlegill rather than bending.

Where it grows

Mycorrhizal with both broadleaved trees and conifers. It keeps to shady, damp ground: wet birch and aspen woods, hollows, the edges of forest ditches. It often fruits in large troops and returns to the same spot year after year. The season runs from July into October, longer than that of most brittlegills.

This is a note about the species, not about what is in your basket. Full card with lookalikes →

What else is out here now

The other species in this region, by today's index.

Stinking Brittlegill in neighbouring regions

A regional boundary means nothing to a mushroom, and the next region is sometimes closer than the far side of your own. The index is for today.