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Danny’s DNA Discoveries – boletes of the PNW
by Danny Miller

Click here for my Pictorial Key to the boletes

Introduction

Boletes look like regular gilled mushrooms in that they have a cap and a stem, but they have a soft fleshy pore surface under their cap instead of gills. The pore layer is easily separated from the flesh of the cap, and the whole mushroom will feel soft enough to easily chew. Unrelated polypore mushrooms (and others) may have a pore surface, but they are usually tougher - at least as tough as leather if not as hard as a chunk of wood, and the pores cannot usually be easily removed from the rest of the mushroom. Boletes usually grow out of the ground (they are mostly mycorrhizal), while polypores more often grow out of the sides of trees without stems, or are simply a pored surface lying flat without a cap on a piece of wood, but occasionally they will have a stem too. Bolete spores are often long and thin, routinely three times longer than they are wide.

This page covers the Boletales families Boletaceae, Gyroporaceae, and Suillaceae, which include all the boletes plus some gastroid and trufflized boletes. An ITS only tree does not always show that Gyroporus belongs in its own family, but multi-gene studies have proven that with high support.

For the gilled mushrooms (and their gastroids) that are in other families of the Boletales, see my page on Gilled Boletes.

abundant common uncommon rare - colour codes match my Pictorial Key and are my opinions and probably reflect my bias of living in W WA. Rare species may be locally common in certain places at certain times.

Summary of Interesting Results

Here are some of the newest, most interesting results of the study:

  • TBD

Suillus - click to expand

Either viscid or with a partial veil, often both. Stem may have dots that look painted on. (The rare Aureoboletus and Pulveroboletus may be viscid or possess a veil, respectively, but will have extremely vivid yellow pores and never any stem dots).

Family: Suillaceae. Genera mentioned: Suillus, Truncocolumella

Leccinum - click to expand

Leccinum are the scaber-stalked boletes, not to be confused with Suillus which has glandular dots that look painted on compared to scabers that can be removed. Most Leccinum can be recognized by whiter pores than many Boletus (not as yellow). Very young specimens might not have developed the scabers yet and are easily confused with the Boletus edulis group (unless you note blue/grey/red staining).

Family: Boletaceae. Genera mentioned: Leccinum

Boletus s.l. - click to expand

Everything else that isn't a Suillus or Leccinum. The stem may have a net-like reticulation at the apex, but won't have scabers nor glandular dots. The cap is usually dry and their is usually no veil (rarely, Aureoboletus and Pulveroboletus are found with vivid yellow pores, with either a viscid cap or a partial veil).

Familes: Boletaceae, Gyroporaceae. Genera mentioned: Boletus, Pulchroboletus, Hemileccinum, Chalciporus, Caloboletus, Rubroboletus, Neoboletus, Suillellus, Hortiboletus, Porphyrellus, Butyriboletus, Xerocomus, Xerocomellus, Gyroporus, Aureoboletus, Buchwaldoboletus, Pulveroboletus, Gastroboletus, Chamonixia, Octaviania

 

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