Russula (the brittlegills) is a large and colourful genus of woodland mushrooms — several hundred species strong — that includes some of the most widely foraged wild edibles of Europe, Asia and Mexico. The best of them, such as the greenish, nutty CHARCOAL BURNER (Russula cyanoxantha) and the buff-capped BARE-TOOTHED russula (Russula vesca), are firm, mild and pleasantly nutty, while the whole genus is instantly known by two marks: caps painted in vivid, almost artificial colours — scarlet, purple, green, ochre, yellow — over CHALK-WHITE gills and stem, and flesh so brittle it snaps like a stick of chalk rather than bending. They grow in mycorrhizal partnership with forest trees, appearing in troops across summer and autumn woodland floors.