This bolete has me wondering...

[cowshill]

While driving over Killhope pass on the A689 yesterday, out of the corner of my eye I saw a lot of whitish blobs in the field off the road. "Holy cow," I thought. "Mushrooms!" The field was an area of old mine slag heaps that were overgrown in grass and had been planted in pine and larch. There were almost numberless lactarius deliciosus and smaller numbers of suillus grevillei (larch bolete). Then there were the two boletes pictured above, which have me wondering. (Sorry the stems are gone - the ground was rock hard and the stems just mushed.)

I haven't been able to match these two up with anything in my books, but I am left with the question: could they be larch boletes that finished up looking like this because they matured in very dry warm conditions? My usual haunts are damp woods, and there the s. grevillei finish up being big, flat, yellow and spongy - but maybe it's different in this dry rocky environment. These were growing in the same area as the s. grevillei, some of which looked as if they could be moving in the direction of looking like these two.

The one other clue is that the flesh tended to very slightly stain blue, and the area where the pores met the flesh had blue liquid that spread over the white flesh when the cap was cut with a knife from bottom to top - as shown on the left side of the cut cap in the first picture.

Any thoughts?

- Jim

[Lancashire Lad]

Hi Jim,

As far as I'm aware, Larch Bolete doesn't blue when damaged. (If I remember correctly the pores go dark ochre colour). Also would expect Larch Bolete to have remains of ring on stipe, but these don't seem to have that.

Can't suggest any alternatives for what they might be though.

Regards,
Mike.

[Andy Overall]

Originally Posted by cowshill

While driving over Killhope pass on the A689 yesterday, out of the corner of my eye I saw a lot of whitish blobs in the field off the road. "Holy cow," I thought. "Mushrooms!" The field was an area of old mine slag heaps that were overgrown in grass and had been planted in pine and larch. There were almost numberless lactarius deliciosus and smaller numbers of suillus grevillei (larch bolete). Then there were the two boletes pictured above, which have me wondering. (Sorry the stems are gone - the ground was rock hard and the stems just mushed.)

I haven't been able to match these two up with anything in my books, but I am left with the question: could they be larch boletes that finished up looking like this because they matured in very dry warm conditions? My usual haunts are damp woods, and there the s. grevillei finish up being big, flat, yellow and spongy - but maybe it's different in this dry rocky environment. These were growing in the same area as the s. grevillei, some of which looked as if they could be moving in the direction of looking like these two.

The one other clue is that the flesh tended to very slightly stain blue, and the area where the pores met the flesh had blue liquid that spread over the white flesh when the cap was cut with a knife from bottom to top - as shown on the left side of the cut cap in the first picture.

Any thoughts?

- Jim

With those olive coloured pores this is another Suillus, most likely either S. bovinus or S. variegatus. Its hard to be exact from the pictures, too much shadow going on.

andy