bleeding milk cap (lactarius rubrilacteus)
One November evening in a cabin on Galiano Island, I read about the bleeding milk cap - historically harvested in the Mediterranean, recently very rarely found in North America, exudes a red sap when the flesh is cut... somehow ,for no discernable reason I got it into my head that this was my "white whale", and proclaimed such to my partner. The next day in a forest that had burned 5 years previously, at the base of conifers, in a profound fit of unlikeliness, I found two. I must have heard them calling through the trees the night before.
True to the guide books, the stem oozed red sap profusely when sliced. Copious, blood-like sap. Other characteristics include the concentric rings on the convex cap, and thin stem. We fried them up with butter and they were underwhelming in flavour, a disappointment after the "fate" and "wonder" and "statistical improbability" of it all. What are you going to do.
bleeding milk cap on wikipedia