Bovine bolete

How to recognise it: bovine bolete

1. 1

   Large, angular pores “like a sieve”

2. 2

   Rubbery, elastic fruit body

3. 3

   No ring

4. 4

   Grows in masses under pine on sand

Description

Cap

3–12 cm across, buff, orange-brown or pale flesh-coloured, often with a paler margin; sticky, rubbery and elastic to the touch.

Tubes and pores

Tubes decurrent, yellow to grey-ochre; pores very large, angular, compound (like the mesh of a sieve).

Stem

Same colour as the cap, cylindrical, without a ring; mycelium at the base whitish to pink.

Flesh

Whitish, yellowish to brownish, very elastic; turns slightly blue, pinkish-red when dried.

Smell and taste

Smell and taste faint, slightly fruity or sourish.

Where and when it grows

Dry, poor sandy soils under pine, often among heather and at forest edges; usually in masses, in clusters.

Most often with: pine

Where are conditions good today?

Look-alikes: what it can be mistaken for

• 

  Velvet bolete Edible low risk

  The velvet bolete has finer pores, a felty (not sticky) cap and firm flesh. Edible. Not in this atlas: Gyrodon lividus (alder bolete; under alders, tubes strongly decurrent).

In the kitchen

Drying and pickling, best mixed with other mushrooms; turns copper-red when pickled.

Protection and sale

• Species protection: the species is not protected.
• Sale: the species is on the list of mushrooms approved for sale (it may be sold only with a mushroom inspector’s certificate).

Where you may pick mushrooms →