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"L"ots more!


Dave W

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Okay, continuing the letter "L" with Leccinum. This is an interesting genus for mushroom enthusiasts east of the Rocky Mountains; because some of the available species concepts seem to be poorly delineated, and some names which represent European species have been dubiously applied to eastern NA types. Many of the Leccinum mushrooms seen here have been preserved and submitted to Michael Kuo as part of a scaber stalk study he is leading.

Whitish "scaber stalk" mushrooms.

Leccinellum albellum (Leccinum albellum) is a whitish species listed as an oak associate. The ones seen directly below were found in oak/maple woods, no birch.

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Found on the same day, about 200 yards down a path from the ones seen above are the ones seen directly below. These three grew very close together. Two are very pale --like Leccinellum albellum-- but one is a little darker-capped. Pale versions of Leccinum scabrum? Birch present.

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Here's a pale scaber stalk found in an area which is completely devoid of oak. Leccinum holopus var. holopus...? This one exhibited no staining on cut flesh or elsewhere.

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Here's an example of what keys out very well as Leccinum holopus var. americanum. From a damp area with several types of birch trees. Pink stain on cut flesh, but also a tiny bit of bluish/greenish stain on the stalk base.

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An area where my wife and I pick cranberries each October produces excellent numbers of scaber stalks. This habitat features gray birch, a few small spruce and hemlock, and no other tree types generally associated with Leccinum. In this area, some of the pale ones key out very well as Leccinum holopus var. americanus, which stains pink on the cut flesh. With some of these I feel reasonably confident using this species name. But some pale examples collected from this same area exhibit little or no pink staining but some bluish-green staining. Some of these type have cap color a bit darker (tan) than others I call "holopus". So Leccinum oxydabile now seems to be a possible species name... except some sources mention bluish/greenish staining for holopus types.

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The imprint on the cap of the next one is from a gray birch leaf that was stuck to the surface.

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And, just to be sure to provide enough confusion... Leccinum scabrum is reported as possibly having a pale cap color, and no blue staining... or maybe some blue staining inside the stalk base. I called this one Leccinum scabrum based upon chemical reactions. Collected from the same cranberry-picking spot as what is seen in the previous two photos.

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Okay, so now we segue into the gray/brown-capped scaber stalks.

Leccinum scabrum is perhaps the most common species among these types... except the descriptions of scabrum vary considerably. When I find a gray/brown-capped scaber stalk that exhibits no staining at all, I call it "scabrum". Like this one... collected from the cranberry spot.

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This would seem to distinguish scabrum from the otherwise similar-looking Leccinum snellii. Snellii exhibits a distinctive staining pattern on the cut flesh, blue on the lower stalk and pink above.

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Except... some of what seems to be Leccinum snellii tends to exhibit very little staining, sometimes with the pink or blue component very faint. This past summer I made several collections of grayish/brownish scaber stalks from areas where I had previously IDed snellii, except the lack of prominent staining seems to indicate that scabrum or oxydabile may be considered.

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And then, there's the occasional dark-capped example that exhibits the type of staining expected with holopus var. americanus... or maybe oxydabile...? From the cranberry spot.

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This large scaber stalk with a slate-gray cap had cut flesh with stain that evolved very slowly into a snellii type pattern. Seems very interesting. Submitted for study.

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Okay, so the whitish/grayish/brownish-capped scaber stalks are confusing. (Actually, there are a few additional species names sometimes applied to eastern NA material... but I'm sufficiently confused by albellum, scabrum, holopus, and oxydabile. So I haven't attempted to apply any of these names.)

So what about the red/orange-capped varieties? In western NA there are a few names that seem to apply very well to those types. But here in the eastern part of the continent, these types comprise a confusing group with mycorrhizal associates ranging across a variety of coniferous and hardwood trees. Once upon a time, the name Leccinum aurantiacum was applied to many of the red-capped eastern scaber stalks... a European name. So what names do apply? This is a work in progress. I'll put out a few possibilities.

Most of the red/orange scaber stalks stalks feature a "sterile flap" along the cap margin. Most also have flesh that stains... gray, purplish, blackish, brown, vinaceous; some exhibiting different colors at different stages of exposure.

Leccinum atrostipitatum. Found in the cranberry spot, lots of small gray birch but near one small spruce tree.

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Leccinum piceinum. Found among mature pine and spruce.

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Here's a few red/orange-capped scaber stalks, some of which represent species that have been called aurantiacum, insigne, or pseudoinsigne. These were observed in a variety of forest settings... hardwood areas with or without oak or birch, hemlock woods with or without birch, spruce/pine woods with or without birch.

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One scaber stalk for which a name has been proposed, albeit with low confidence, Leccinum subgranulosum.

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And finally (for Leccinum) one which I thought may be L. subgranulosum... except this proposed name did not elicit any agreement. So this one is Leccinum ????

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I hope to be able to finish off the letter "L" in one more post. Still much more to come.

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After all those scaber stalks posted, I forgot to add this.

I consider all of the Leccinum mushrooms to be edible. My wife and I enjoy them often. Our favorite way is sliced thin, salted, and fried in butter until brown and somewhat crisp. Like this, they serve as a good imitation of bacon. So we have them prepared like this with pancakes and maple syrup, or French toast. A friend of mine like them dried and reconstituted for soup. But used like this they tend to turn the soup a very dark color, and rehydrated Leccinum tends to be a bit fibrous/chewy. For drying to use in soups/sauces/risottos I think the King Bolete types are best.

But, there are reports of red/orange capped Leccinum causing illness for some people. These reports come from the Rocky Mountain region and Michigan. There seems to be some concern about eating Leccinum insigne. But my wife and I have enjoyed this species during our visits to Montana. It would not surprise me if these problems were the result of the mushrooms being under-cooked. Leccinums have somewhat fibrous flesh in the stalk, and it should be well cooked. There's also a large reddish western NA species that has very dense flesh, Leccinum fibrillosum. We were vacationing in central Montana in 2009, a summer when near record rainfall had occurred in this part of the state. I could have collected 100 pounds of Boletus edulis from the upland spruce/pine forests. With no way to preserve them, I took only what we could use while camping, and a few extra to share with some local shopkeepers. But I did also run across Leccinum fibrillosum. I sampled some at our campsite and found it to be of typically good quality.

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