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ID assistance please


Nrc

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Greetings from sunny South Africa, 

I have these mushrooms popping up through the grass under the oak trees in my garden. They have been there a week or so, so the attached photos are not from a freshly picked mushroom. It doesn't have any particular smell (just a mushroom smell).

Assistance would be great. 

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I'm guessing that the flesh of this mushroom has a pleasant nutty flavor. (It's okay to nibble a tiny bit and then spit it out; a typical ID step.) Also, I think this was probably found under/near pine trees... or possibly some other coniferous tree(s). This is an African mushroom, so I'm likely not going to pinpoint the ID. Many species are particular to a certain continent, or smaller geographic area. Okay, here's my guess... something close to the European species Boletus pinophilus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boletus_pinophilus   

More generally, this mushroom is classified as a "bolete", which means that the underside of the cap is composed of pores/tubes that form a spongelike layer. In the one photo this layer appears to be separating from the rest of the cap. The spores --seeds that are the reproductive mechanism for the fungus-- drop from the pores. There are numerous genera for the boletes. The mushroom seen here is almost certainly representative of a species from genus Boletus. 

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  • 5 weeks later...

Looks like possibly two different species in the photos.

First four photos look like  the European Boletus pinophilus, except the species similar to pinophilus grow under pine. Could there be one or two pines in the area? If not, it's not a major surprise to find species of King Boletes under oak... just not B. pinophilus. So, I'd guess these are a hardwood-associating species similar to B. edulis.

Last two photos may show something different than the first four... or they may just be young versions of the others. It would be helpful to see the pore surface (underside of cap) as well as a view of a mushroom vertically sliced to show the cross section. If you cut/scratch the flesh, take note of any staining. 

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We do have pines in the garden, the closest one is about 15 metres away from where picked these. 

The new photos are what we have growing right under the pines.  Which stained orange when sliced.

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These latest ones are a species of Lactarius, one of the types with colorful latex. These types generally exude liquid/latex in very small amounts. To observe the latex, gently press either your finger or a piece of white paper against the cut flesh and then look for signs of color on the finger/paper. These types of Lactarius are mainly pine associates. 

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