Pine Spike Cap
Description
Cap convex with umbo, Ø 4-8 cm, smooth, sticky, shiny, brick-red to copper-red, with wine-red tinge.
Gills olive-ochre to dingy purple.
Stem 5-12 cm x 5-15 mm, orange-ochre, wine-red at the apex, with ring-shaped velar remnants and tapering base with dingy ochrous to pink mycelium. Flesh orange-ochre. Taste mild. Smell none.
Edible.
Occurrence
Not uncommon near two-needled pines in coniferous woods on dry sandy soil with little litter and in coastal sand dunes. Possibly also as a parasite on the mycelium of Suillus and Rhizopogon species (383.jpg).
Forming ectomycorrhiza.
Parasitic?