A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1467 entries
blusher
Amanita rubescens, a large woodland mushroom with a dull brownish-pink cap scattered with greyish warts, a ring, and a swollen base. Its distinguishing habit is in the name: Cut it, bruise it, or find one a slug has been at, and the flesh slowly turns wine-pink and then a dirty red. Old specimens carry the reddening everywhere, especially in the stem base and up under the cap skin.
Etymology
An English common name that translates the Latin exactly — rubescens is the present participle of Latin rubescere, to become red, an inceptive verb built on ruber, red. The -escere ending is the same one hiding in convalescent and adolescent: It means a thing in the act of becoming. So the mushroom is named not for being red but for going red while you watch.