russula a genus of mushrooms. It is surprising that the group has no common English name, except for ‘russula’, which is simply the scientific name laicized. The same applies in Italy, where the name is rossola, and in France, where all except one species (mentioned below) are russule. The very large number of species (over 100 in Britain and nearly 200 in Europe as a whole), the bright hues which many of them display, and the fact that many are highly edible could be expected to have yielded a whole crop of vernacular names.
