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Boletus rubellus?


cborchids

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We've been having a lot of rain here, 30 miles south of Atlanta in the piedmont. Out in the mixed deciduous and pine forest yesterday I found a lot of Lactarius piperata, also a small brown bolete on very decayed fallen logs - touched it to the tip of my tongue, bitter and soapy! Some Amanita caesarea, I leave amanitas alone. One little puffball, which my wife and I ate with breakfast, and about four or five pounds of these, growing mostly along a ditch by a dirt road out there in groups of up to 10 or so. The cap is pretty bright brick red, 10 cm maximum diameter, pore layer thin, though this one's chewed on top they turn out not to be very buggy; texture velvety, not sticky. Pores stain blue swiftly but the stem and meat of the cap seem not to stain much. Stems are 4 - 5 cm long, about 1 cm wide on big specimens. Stems are red for bottom 3/4 of their length, yellow at the top, not much texture, no flocking or honecomb like texture. Pores are about 2 or 3 per millimeter. Based on all that, closest I come is Boletus rubellus. We used to get chrysenteron and/or zelleri where we lived in California, this has many similarities; we cooked a very small piece this morning and tasted it, not soapy, just a pleasant meaty bit of mushroom (a sliver 2 cm long x .5 cm wide). Any opinions out there? I read that this is too large for rubellus, might be bicolor?

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Cborchids, B. rubellus is a possibility. Also, B. fraternus and B. campestris are similar species. The Boletus bicolor types may also be considered; but I don't think this collection represents this species cluster... pores don't look right. The North American Bolete book lists B. rubellus edibilty as "unknown" and B. fraternus as "edible with caution." I have a personal record of eating B. rubellus. I have also sampled B. fraternus. Surprisingly (to me!) I have no record of ever trying B. campestris. It grows in my backyard lawn virtually every summer. I'll need to try it out.

Sampling different types of boletes is not without risk, especially the stainers. I got a fairly bad case of indigestion once from eating a meal of Tylopilus eximius (changed to Sutorius eximius). There are species that occur in southern NA that do not occur in norhtern NA, and vice-versa.

You're move from California to Georgia will result in many new fungal ID challenges. Western NA and eastern NA species are often quite different, especially the mycorrhizals... because the tree species are different.

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Yes definitely mycorrhizal, first one on pine the rest, well, not sure on the edge of the dirt road, earth hasn't been disturbed there in years but there are oaks, hickories, pines mingled. We tried one little piece, I'll try another; not only species differences but complete seasonal as well - in CA they only came up in the rainy season (winter) and here, wow!

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Well they're delicious and nutty in flavor, firm and a little slippery, very good on hamburgers. Kuo's site shows them too big for rubellus, right size for bicolor, also supposed to be 2 or 3 pores/mm in bicolor, which this has. I'm supposing it's bicolor or something close. Going back in a few days if the intermittent rains keep coming! Yum!

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To me these look more like rubellus/campestris/fraternus (all similar species of boletus) than bicolor. The pore surface does not remind me of bicolor. But I cannot rule out bicolor just on the basis of the photos and description provided here. Boletes can be tricky to ID.

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Cborchids, looking again, that first bolete does look like B. bicolor to me. I agree with you about the size being quite large for campestris/rubellus. This appears to be a mature specimen, so the pores are kinda dingy, which is typical for an older specimen of bicolor. .

But the small red bolete posted by electricjw are likely to represent something other than B. bicolor. The large pores are not a B. bicolor trait. So I think this one may represent campestris, rubellus, or fraternus. But the pores look a bit different than what I'd expect to see in these types.

There are a number of SE North American boletes with which I am unfamiliar. GA and FL get some types that I have not ever seen.

Here's some of my photos of what I have IDed as campestris, fraternus, rubellus, and bicolor. There are other red and yellow species of Boletus besides these... B. sensibilis, B. pseudosensibils, B. miniato-olivaceus to name a few.

Boletus campestris

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Boletus fraternus

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Boletus rubellus

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Boletus bicolor

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Thanks - now we're on to chanterelles and black trumpets; I looked at the patch of Boletus on my way home yesterday, there are just the ones I left to spore out, no new ones up... well, they were a tasty treat!

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