Porcini by any other name ...

[4rum]

Are Porcini the same bolete that is called King Bolete, Cep and Penny Bun? My chosen mushroom to learn to harvest safely for 2015 will be. I am a novice. I want to be able to positively identify more mushrooms than morels. Over the last couple of years I've learned Chicken of the Woods and Chanterelles. I've had some King Boletes, they are delicious and grow in this area.

I've spent a lot of time online and am gaining confidence in properly identifying King Boletes. I hope by growing season 2015 I'll be ready to harvest them. I'll have many questions such as, growing season here in the Appalachians, common locations to start looking etc. Youtube has a lot of info, but I'm not always sure the folks discussing a particular mushroom are discussing what I'm looking at in the woods.

Any help, response, discussion etc. will be greatly appreciated.

[Cedric]

Welcome, and yes. Porcini is the Italian name for king bolete: Boletus Edulis. If you are close to Asheville, there is a mushroom club there. Nothing beats going into the woods with andmexpert!

[4rum]

Cedric you've hit it perfectly. I would LOVE to go afield with an expert. I don't think anything would be as helpful as looking at 'live' specimens in hand. I'm in southern WV. Asheville is, I think, about 3 hours drive. That's doable for an outing maybe in a peak season for King Boletes or which ever mushroom I'm researching at the time.

Thanks for the response. With several common names, regional names and the like, I just want to be sure first that I'm discussing the same mushroom when asking questions or talking about them. That goes for any mushroom. It's probably the reason most folks learn and use the latin. I need to work on that as well, especially since I cannot find a pronunciation key for so many mushrooms ... how the heck do you pronounce hericium? Is the 'c' hard or soft? I've spent hours online trying to find that.

[ladyflyfsh]

Yes, Boletus edulis is also called King bolete. In French it is Cep. BUT porcini is a name used for several different species of Boletus in Italy and does not only mean Boletus edulis. They tend to lump a lot of species together into that group.

[4rum]

Yes, Boletus edulis is also called King bolete. In French it is Cep. BUT porcini is a name used for several different species of Boletus in Italy and does not only mean Boletus edulis. They tend to lump a lot of species together into that group.

Then I should use King Bolete or Boletus Edulis as the name to ask about. It's the one I'm most interested in. Thanks everyone for the help.

[Scott C]

And scientific studies have proven few if any in North America are B. edulis. However, while in Wales, I found them very yummy and moved to number one in my top 10 list.

[4rum]

Scott C;

Then I'm confused. Many credible? sources on the internet have B. edulis as pretty common with large numbers over much of the U.S. Are they, in fact, discussing another bolete?

[ladyflyfsh]

Scott.....I don't know where you get that info that there is no such thing as true edulis in the US. There is. I have the tree to prove it from DNA. I showed it to you months ago. I will post it here again. I just posted it on another thread a little while ago. It is a PDF and you have to download it and then open it. The CA, MT and European edulis are all side by side in the DNA lineup.

MTporcinidna.pdf

[Dave W]

Here in NE PA most of what I call "Boletus edulis" is found on lawns under Norway Spruce that was planted between 40-100 years ago. I think that, in at least some cases, the mushrooms may have arrived along with the trees. That is, the roots of the young spruce trees were already associated with the Boletus fungus. So maybe some of my local King Boletes are actually the same species as (at least one) found in Europe. I also find a few types that occur in woodland areas that usually feature hemlock trees. These reddish ones look like a different species than the "penny bun" colored ones I get under the planted spruce. I think there's still a lot of work remaining to be done in order to properly classify the North American edulis types. Over the years some names that have been applied to eastern NA Kings are... B. clavipes, B. chippewaensis, B. edulis var. arantio-ruber. To add to this confusion, there are similar types that occur in hardwood forests... B. nobilis, B. separans, B. reticulatus, B. variipes. All of these are excellent edibles, as long as you get them before the bugs do!

[4rum]

Jeepers! It's going to be tough for me to positively identify the boletes in my area. I want harvest boletes for the table but I want to do it safely. I think this growing season is pretty much over so I'll do some reading over the winter. Can't wait till spring! Hope by the time the boletes start showing up I will have accrued enough knowledge to enjoy some of them with confidence.

[Scott C]

Thanks for the reminder Ladyfish, yes they did sequnce them, you have to remember the closest thing I will ever see in my part of Ohio is and only rarely is nobilissimus

[ladyflyfsh]

Dave, Scott, 4rum, Boletus edulis has been found in Christchurch, New Zealand and is starting to spread throughout that area of the South Island. There is an enormous park in the center of the city of Christchurch, called Hagley Park. They have an equally enormous nursery to keep back up plants and trees on hand should anything die or get damaged etc. Many of these trees were brought in from the UK and had the Boletus edulis mycelium already established with the roots of the trees, hence Boletus edulis which is not native to New Zealand is now starting to grow there and even move around the area a bit. It is not all that uncommon.

[4rum]

I did read up on some 'cracked' top boletes I found. I did sample a tiny bit. It was good. I ate a bunch. They were fantastic. I want more!!! If B. edulis is better than these I'm ruined for life!!!

[Dave W]

4rum, although I generally advise people to know the mushroom species before eating the mushroom, the "King" types of boletes are one exception. Ones that pass all the following tests are mainly edible: 1. non-staining white flesh; 2. pores not bruising blue or brown; 3. pores not red; 4. taste mild, not bitter. I know of only one counter-example (see below).

Additionally, any large bolete which exhibits all of the above, and which features a reticulate stalk (net-like network of threads on the stalk surface), qualifies as a type of King Bolete. The Russians lump all of these together under the heading "Whites." These are all species in the genus Boletus. (B. separans was called Xanthoconium separans for several years, but it's back in Boletus now.) There are species of Tylopilus which feature large white-fleshed mushrooms having reticulate stalks, but most either bruise/stain brown or have bitter flesh.

One species to know is Boletus huronensis. It has whitish flesh that bruises faintly blue in spots, but the bruising/staining is perhaps an unreliable trait. The stalk is not reticulate.

http://mushroomobserver.org/174643?q=2KxC2

I wonder how many different NA "edulis" collections have been sequenced? The ones that occur in eastern NA, the Rockies, and western NA appear to represent different species... and within any of these regions different species seem to occur.

[ladyflyfsh]

I agree, Dave. Did you have a look at the chart I posted earlier?

[Dave W]

Just now viewed the doc with bolete chart, ladyflyfish. Many branches on the edulis genetic evolutionary tree. So it looks like quite a few species have been DNA sequenced. I see there's a branch on the tree named after your specimen! I wonder where on the tree one finds the "Penny Bun" spruce associates I collect here in PA? The ones seen below were all collected under planted spruce, in 4 different locations here in NE PA.

[4rum]

4rum, although I generally advise people to know the mushroom species before eating the mushroom, the "King" types of boletes are one exception. Ones that pass all the following tests are mainly edible: 1. non-staining white flesh; 2. pores not bruising blue or brown; 3. pores not red; 4. taste mild, not bitter. I know of only one counter-example (see below).

Additionally, any large bolete which exhibits all of the above, and which features a reticulate stalk (net-like network of threads on the stalk surface), qualifies as a type of King Bolete. The Russians lump all of these together under the heading "Whites." These are all species in the genus Boletus. (B. separans was called Xanthoconium separans for several years, but it's back in Boletus now.) There are species of Tylopilus which feature large white-fleshed mushrooms having reticulate stalks, but most either bruise/stain brown or have bitter flesh.

One species to know is Boletus huronensis. It has whitish flesh that bruises faintly blue in spots, but the bruising/staining is perhaps an unreliable trait. The stalk is not reticulate.

http://mushroomobserver.org/174643?q=2KxC2

I wonder how many different NA "edulis" collections have been sequenced? The ones that occur in eastern NA, the Rockies, and western NA appear to represent different species... and within any of these regions different species seem to occur.

Thanks Dave. Your description is very good. I did read quite extensively before ever trying even a tiny bite of the mushrooms I was finding. I took the cautions seriously and used a magnifying glass to inspect for even the slightest staining/bruising. I will continue to study this bolete along with established guidelines for King Bolete. I did find one King Bolete starting into fall this year. It was in standing oak timber. I didn't know what it was at the time. I hope more appear there this coming year. There were beautiful Frost's boletes too. The ones I ate are so good that they just may surpass morels as my favorite. I can't wait to have King Boletes.

Thanks again for your help and patience

'rum

[ladyflyfsh]

I'm sure there are quite a good many that have not been sequenced yet. The Montana porcini I find and you did too when you were there, are true edulis. There were people in Oregon who used to fight me saying thay were B. rex-veris because of the time of year I found them which is late spring, early summer. I knew they looked identical to the edulis I used to find in coastal California, so when I saw David Arora at a mushroom show in OR, he told me to send him samples and he'd get them sequenced and sure enough, they are very, very close on the tree to the CA porcini as well as the European porcini. I was pretty jazzed about that! Some are actually Boletus edulis var. Grand edulis.