The Miller
This is not a mushroom for novice foragers as it looks like the deadly poisonous Clitocybe dealbata or rivulosa and great care should be taken when trying to identify this species.
Scientific Name – Clitopilus prunulus
Common Names:
The Miller (EN), The Sweetbread Mushroom, Cap Melinydd (CY), Bruzdniczek Największy (PL), Kajsza Lisztgomba (HU)
Please note that each and every mushroom you come across may vary in appearance to these photos.
Cap
6-9 cm. White to porcelain white with a fine suede like surface when dry. Starts fairly round but develops very uneven lobed edges and a depressed centre.
Gills
White turning to pink as the pink spores colour them. Strongly decurrent, running down the stem.
Stem
4-7 cm long, 0.5-1.2 cm diameter. White with slight grey hints and not always joined to the middle of the cap and can be quite eccentric.
Flesh
White/grey white.
Habitat
In mixed woodland in clearings especially coniferous woodland, hedgerows and roadsides.
Possible Confusion
Can look very like the Deadly Poisonous Fool’s Funnel (Clitocybe rivulosa) which seems to be merged with the former Ivory Funnel (Clitocybe dealbata) although these generally grow in rings in grassland. The best id for The Miller is the smell, like raw dough in polite company but described more accurately as spermatazoic in some mycology books.
Other Facts
In March 2025 the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) added 1000 fungal species to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The IUCN (Global) Conservation Status of The Miller (Clitopilus prunulus) is: LC – Least Concern, with stable population. The cucumber odor of this species has been attributed to trans-2-nonenal, which is present at a concentration of 17 μg per gram of crushed tissue. C. prunulus contains the volatile compound 1-octen-3-ol, making it unpalatable to the coastal Pacific Northwest banana slug, Ariolimax columbianus.
