Species flashcards

Description

Cap: 3–10 cm across, convex when young, later spreading, with an often wavy margin. Greyish- to yellowish-brown, ochre, sometimes with a pinkish flush; slimy or sticky in wet weather, often becoming drier later.

Tubes and pores: The tubes run slightly down the stem. Pores are characteristically large, irregularly angular and often radially elongated; yellow at first, later greyish to olive-brown.

Stem: 4–7 cm tall and 0.5–1 cm thick, slender, cylindrical and usually tapering toward the base. Cap-coloured or slightly paler, smooth to finely fibrous. Ring absent.

Flesh: Whitish to pale yellow, spongy and elastic, usually unchanging when cut, rarely slowly becoming clay-pink. Smell slightly fruity and taste mild.

Spores: Spore print olive-brown. Spores 8–10 × 3.5–4.5 µm, ellipsoid to fusiform, smooth and yellowish-tinged.

Occurrence: A mycorrhizal species, chiefly under Scots pine in acidic or sandy pine woodland. It often occurs in larger groups in summer and autumn; the rose slimecap may parasitise its mycelium.

Edibility: Edible, but of moderate culinary value. Young specimens may be eaten, and drying can intensify the flavour.

Lookalikes: It resembles the ringless slippery jack, weeping bolete and slippery jack. The bovine bolete lacks a ring and has a slender stem with characteristically wide, angular, slightly decurrent pores.

Note: Among ancient Romans, suilli was a folk collective name for common, less highly regarded boletes. Bovinus means “of cattle”, referring to the yellowish-brown, leather-like cap colour and folk observations of cattle on woodland pasture.

Species description: Carl Linnaeus first described the species as Boletus bovinus in 1753. Henri François Anne de Roussel transferred it to Suillus in 1806.

Taxonomy

1. PhylumBasidiomycota
2. ClassAgaricomycetes
3. OrderBoletales
4. FamilySuillaceae
5. GenusSuillus

• Species: Suillus bovinus
• Authority: (L.) Roussel (1806)
• English name: Bovine bolete
• Ecological status: mycorrhizal
• Edibility: edible