Charbonnier / Sooty Head

Tricholoma portentosum

Coniferous forests, mostly pine forests with birch. Summer (rarely), autumn.

Medium-sized mushrooms. Cap 3—6 (10) cm across, with a blunt umbo, shiny, slimy, radially streaked, bluish-grey, grey, sometimes with a bluish-violet tinge. Gills white, when old greenish-yellowish, adnate. Stem 6-10x1-3 cm in size, white, whitish-yellowish. Flesh greyish, with a pleasant smell and taste. Characteristic features: cap bluntly conical, in older mushrooms flattened but with an umbo; gills and stem yellowish, greenish-yellowish. Grows in groups. Tasty fresh, salted, dried, pickled; in value it is not inferior to the Yellow Knight. Very common. Quite similar to the Ashen Knight (Tricholoma virgatum), which is mildly poisonous; the mushroom picker should not forget this.