Bolete Identification

[Kevin Hoover]

For the past two years, I’ve spent significant time researching Bolete identification.   I can confidently ID some now but have a long way to go.

What I’m hearing over and over is that you have to know the “tells” of each species or complex.  Dave provided one to me earlier this year for the B. Bicolor complex.

But the problem I’ve had is how do you find the tells?

I stumbled across a YouTube video one of the Western PA club members who does an excellent job of providing tells for many of the Boletes.  It was a recorded version of one of their meetings within the last year or two. You can probably find it if you search for it.

[bobby b]

https://boletes.wpamushroomclub.org/?fwp_filters=found-in-s-w-pennsylvania, try the bolete filter. He talks about the "tells".

When you click on that link, the page is mostly blank so you'll have to click on the name in the top left for the mushrooms to show.  It takes a while to get the hang of it.

Go to the #1 filter, Regional. Click on the plus to expand it. Select the northeast. Then select PA. Sometime the photo don't show up. You'll have to reload. Lot's of good identifiers contribute to it including Dave W. I don't think his synoptic key works very well but lots of good info and photos.

[Kevin Hoover]

Thanks, I have to check out the filter more.  I was going off the recording of the August 2020 WPAMC meeting were he talked about some of the tells.

This past summer I learned to correctly ID B. bicolor, B. seperans, Leccinellum albellum, Suillus spraguei, Sullius americanus, Xanthoconium affine, Aureoboletus projectellus and a couple others.  It’s a start.  Some of these might be older names, but I use Bessette’s Bolete book as a baseline.

I gave some thought to joining the Western PA club, but most of the meetings are quite a ways from me.

[bobby b]

I ordered  Bessette's Boletes of Eastern NA today. Yes, a long way to go. This September's Lincoff foray is going to have Alan & Arlene Bessette & also Stephen Russell as speakers. That might be worth it.

[Kevin Hoover]

I’ll have to see if I can manage to get away that weekend.

Unfortunately, the Saturday of the Central PA club’s Bill Russell foray, I have to attend a wedding.  I’m hoping I can hunt in the morning and get back for the wedding (about an hour away).

Labor Day weekend, I’m planning on attending the MAW foray, then I leave the following Wednesday for the New River to fish.   Let’s see if I get concurrence on the Western PA weekend.