Our Edible Toadstools and Mushrooms and How to Distinguish Them / A Selection of Thirty Native Food Varieties Easily Recognizable by their Marked Individualities, with Simple Rules for the Identification of Poisonous Species

by W. Hamilton Gibson

CONE-LIKE BOLETUS

Strobilomyces strobilaceus

Botanical characters

Another allied species, not especially famous for its esculent qualities, but which is, nevertheless, not to be despised, is here introduced on account of its especially pronounced character (Plate 23)—the cone-like Boletus, or, more properly, Strobilomyces. It is of a brownish gray color, its shaggy surface more or less studded with deep brown or black woolly points, each at the centre of a scale-like segment. The tubes beneath are covered by the veil in the younger specimens, but this at length breaks, leaving ragged fragments hanging from the rim of the pileus. The pore surface thus exposed is at first a grayish white, ultimately becoming brown. The substance of the fungus turns red when broken or cut.

This very striking mushroom is found in woods, especially under evergreens. It frequently attains a diameter of four inches. Its spores are a deep brown, and a specimen selected at the stage when the under surface is flat will yield a most beautiful spore print if laid upon white paper and protected from the atmosphere, as described in a later chapter.

PLATE XXIII
THE CONE-LIKE BOLETUS

Strobilomyces strobilaceus

Pileus: From two to four inches in diameter, covered with a soft gray wool drawn into regular cone-like points tipped with dark brown.

Flesh grayish white, turning red when bruised.

Pore surface: Grayish white in young specimen, and then usually covered with the veil; dark brown or almost black at maturity. [Plate 38] shows a spore-print of this species.

Spores: Very dark brown.

Taste: Negatively pleasant.

Odor: Sweet and mild.

Habitat: Woods; singly or in small clusters.

PLATE XXIII

Strobilomyces Strobilaceus.

Black spore-prints

A reproduction of one of these prints is shown in [Plate 38], the white reticulation representing the contact of the tube orifices with the paper, each tube depositing its dot composed of spores, the depth of color increasing in proportion to the time involved in the deposit. A single mushroom will yield a half-dozen or more prints. This fungus dries readily, and may be kept indefinitely.