This very beautiful plant is quite common in damp pine woods. It is easily recognized by the reddish cottony layer of mycelium threads which cover the entire plant when young, and form a veil which covers the gills at this time. As the plant expands the reddish outer layer is torn into scales of the same color, showing the yellowish, or pinkish, flesh beneath, and the flesh often changes to pink or reddish where wounded. The tubes are first pale yellow, but become darker in age, often changing to pinkish, with a brown tinge where bruised. The stem is solid, and is thus different from a closely related species, B. cavipes Kalchb. The stem is covered with a coat like that on the pileus and is similarly colored, though often paler. The spores are ochraceous, 15-18x6-8 µ. The plants are 5-8 cm. high, the caps 5-8 cm. broad, and the stems 6-12 mm. in thickness.

Figure 175

Boletinus pictus. Cap reddish, tinged with yellowish between the scales, stem same color, tubes yellow, ofter changing to reddish brown where bruised (natural size). Copyright.

Figure 175 is from plants collected in the Blue Ridge mountains, Blowing Rock, N. C, September, 1899.

Boletinus porosus (Berk.) Pk. - This very interesting species is widely distributed in the Eastern United States. It resembles a Polyp-orus, though it is very soft like a Boletus, but quite tenacious. The plants are dull reddish-brown, viscid when moist, and shining. The cap is more or less irregular and the stem eccentric, the cap being sometimes more or less lobed. The plants are 4-6 cm. high, the cap 5-12 cm. broad, and the short stem 8-12 mm. in thickness. It occurs in damp ground in woods.

The pileus is fleshy, thick at the middle, and thin at the margin. The tubes are arranged in prominently radiating rows, the partitions often running radiately in the form of lamellae, certain ones of them being more prominent than others as shown in Fig. 176. These branch and are connected by cross partitions of less prominence. This character of the hymenium led Berkeley to place the plant in the genus Paxillus, with which it does not seem to be so closely related as with the genus Boletus. The stratum of tubes, though very soft, is very tenacious, and does not separate from the flesh of the pileus, thus resembling certain species of Polyponis. Figure 176 is from plants collected at Ithaca.

Strobilornyces strobilaceus Berk. Edible. - This plant has a peculiar name, both the genus and the species referring to the cone-like appearance of the cap with its coarse, crowded, dark brown scales, bearing a fancied resemblance to a pine cone. It is very easily distinguished from other species of Boletus because of this character of the cap. The plant has a very wide distribution though it is not usually very common. The plant is 8-14 cm. high, the cap 5-10 cm. broad, and the stem 1-2 cm. in thickness.

The pileus is hemispherical to convex, shaggy from numerous large blackish, coarse, hairy, projecting scales. The margin of the cap is fringed with scales and fragments of the veil which covers the tubes in the young plants. The flesh is whitish, but soon changes to reddish color, and later to black where wounded or cut. The tubes are adnate, whitish, becoming brown and blackish in the older plants. The mouths of the tubes are large and angular, and change color where bruised, as does the flesh of the cap. The stem is even, or sometimes tapers upward, often grooved near the apex, very tomen-tose or scaly with soft scales of the same color as the cap. The spores are in mass dark brown, nearly globose, roughened, and 10-12 µ long. Figs. 177-179 are from plants collected at Ithaca, N. Y. Another European plant, S. floccopus Vahl, is said by Peck to occur in the United States, but is much more rare. The only difference in the two noted by Peck in the case of the American plants is that the tubes are depressed around the stem in 5. floccopus.

Plate 63, Figure 176

Boletinus porosus. Viscid when moist, dull reddish brown (natural size). Copyright.

Plate 64, Figure 177

Strobilomyces strobilaceus. Scales of cap dark brown or black, flesh white but soon changing to reddish and later to black where wounded, stem same color but lighter (natural size). Copyright.

Figure 178

Strobilomyces strobilaceus. Sections of plants. Copyright.

Figure 179

Strobilomyces strobilaceus. Under view. Copyright.