Life on the Outer Coast

Boletes and others

Found 4 edible (that is not previously eaten) Boletus edulis last week. Three by the cemetary and one by SJ. The first three were somewhat eaten by fly or moth larvae, but the last one looked perfect. The larvae were pretty easy to remove by slicing the mushrooms and soaking them briefly in salty water. I'm not particularly sensitive to the idea of insects in my boletes, so I ate them and feed them to guests. I gave the fourth one to a group of Elderhostel folks to whom I gave a talk. They were particularly nervous about eating mushrooms since one of the company had a relative who required a new liver because of misidentification. Hopefully, the bolete left them with a more positive impression.



Also found Suillus fuscotomentosus in the muskeg near where we collected samples for the Mt. Edgecumbe projects. This species lacks a veil, the stipe is similar in color to the cap with dark brown punctuate fibers. The stipe is slight larger at the base than at the apex.
The cap is yellowish (#67 brillant OrangeYellow) with tufts of dark brown fibers. The diameter of the cap of the ones I saw was up to 5 inches (the one in the photo is 6.5 cm). It doesn't have a particular odor. The spore print is olive brown. What seperates this species of Suillus from a similar species (tomentosus) is that it does not stain blue when bruised.


This one is allegedly edible, however Arora says that it isn't particularly palatable.

Found Suillus tomentosus under the pines by the Mt. Edgecumbe High School Gym. It looked very similar in color, shape and size but stained blue when bruised. Despite this blue staining, this one is supposed to be edible, but not palatable.

Also under the pine tree at the gym was Suillus brevipes. A much tidier looking bolete. The cap was a warm light brown and the pores bright yellow. No blue staining.

Also collected a much larger (10 cm) Chalciporus piperatus than I usually find. It was more of a medium yellow brown than the red-brown that is typical. It was also much more irregular in shape than the smaller ones. The flesh of the cap was pale yellow to white. The stipe was bright yellow at base as is typcial. The stipe flesh is also yellow. The stipe was narrow for theLess than 1cm across and about 5 cm long. kind of mishapen. Because it was so different from what I usually see, I was compelled to check more characters. Yes, I had to taste it and was very hot.

The Leccinum scabrum were fruiting at St. Peter's church yard under the birch.


Russula emetica is another one I see every year, but still felt compelled to taste it (very hot), look at the spore color (white) and key it out. This one was growing in scrubby hemlock forest with Lysichiton in the understory near the bench muskeg off the Indian River trail.

Tom Volk had this to say about identification of Russula emetica "Even if you find a red Russula and think it's R. emetica, you're probably wrong." There is a longer explanation of the issues regarding identifying Russulas in general at both his post on R. emetica and on the Mushroom Expert, both seem to agree that one should treat all identifications as tentative. http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/sep2004.html