Perhaps Blewit

 
Not feeling very imaginative, and anyway, you already knew that I'd want to dissect this and figure out what it is.



You can see that it is a blue/purple mushroom. You'd think that would be quite distinctive, but it turns out there are several choices. I'm no mushroom expert by a long shot, and it always seems to me that mushrooms are much harder than plants. They seem to change form at every stage of the game, with many more variations and exceptions to the "norm."

I do know a couple of blue/purple mushrooms it is NOT. It's not the Blue Spine that I showed you in 2010, or the Violet Toothed Polypore

I think I've got those ones down pat, and they are both toothed, so they are completely eliminated for this one which is gilled.



This one has a fat stalk, which pretty much eliminates a couple of others. It's not sticky which is a characteristic of a different one. This has purple gills which the Blewit has, but it's supposed to also have a purple stem; this one is white. It does not have a central dimple on the cap, but it does have streaks of yellowish-brown, so that says Blewit.

I brought a small one home, and forgot to cut it in half right away, so it had dried somewhat. But this gives me two more pieces of information. First, the stem is solid rather than hollow. It also shows how the gills are attached to the stem. The ones on the bottom in the picture broke when I cut it, but you can see how the ones on the top seem to sweep down into the stem. That is also correct for the Blewit.



So, I'm going with Clitocybe nuda, the Blewit. The name is some old world language iteration of "blue cap." It's supposed to be highly sought after as a food. I think I'd want an expert opinion of my ID before I tried them!

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