It is brown in colour, with a large number of gills and a particularly thin layer of flesh in the cap.

Although considered edible, it is not particularly useful as food due to its ivy-like taste and the fact that more choice mushrooms will be easily found at the same time.

L. subdulcis is known for its abundant, sweet-tasting milk that, unlike the latex of some of its relatives, does not stain fabric yellow.

Lactarius subdulcis was first described as Agaricus subdulcis by mycologist Christian Hendrik Persoon in 1801,[3] before English mycologist Samuel Frederick Gray placed it in its current genus Lactarius in 1821 in his The Natural Arrangement of British Plants.

[1] It sometimes has a small umbo, and in colour can be a reddish-brown, rusty or dark-cinnamon, later paling to buff,[1] though darker in the middle.

[1][7] It has white, plentiful milk that does not stain fabrics yellow, differentiating it from other species of Lactarius, such as L.

[1] The spores are oval, with largish warts of around 1 micrometre (μm) which are joined by a well-developed network of mostly thin ridges.

[8] They can also be found in fields, generally appearing in large batches, with groups of over a hundred mushrooms not uncommon.