Mt. Gretna, Pa. August, 1898. Taste slightly acrid, smell slight. Excellent.
Var. pallid´ipes. Stem pallid, slightly furfuraceous, even or obscurely reticulated toward the base, distinctly reticulated above. Peck, Boleti of the U.S.
Satiny, shining. Taste slightly acrid, smell slight. Excellent.
Var. tenu´ipes. Stem slender, elongated. Peck, Boleti of the U.S.
Mt. Gretna, Pa. August, 1898, on decaying chestnut stump and on ground. Excellent. McIlvaine.
This species, with its varieties, grows in mixed woods, the density of which has much to do with its general appearance. Individuals growing where the sun plays upon them, show the reticulations plainer than those maturing in the shade. The tubes should be removed before cooking. The caps are best fried.
B. exi´mius Pk.—select. Pileus at first very compact, subglobose or hemispherical, subpruinose, purplish-brown or chocolate color, sometimes with a faint tinge of lilac, becoming convex, soft, smoky-red or pale-chestnut. Flesh grayish or reddish-white. Tubes at first concave or nearly plane, stuffed, colored nearly like the pileus, becoming paler with age and depressed around the stem, their mouths minute, rotund. Stem stout, generally short, equal or tapering upward, abruptly narrowed at the base, minutely branny, colored like or a little paler than the pileus, purplish-gray within. Spores subferruginous, 12.5–15×5–6µ.
Pileus 3–10 in. broad. Stem 2–4 in. long, 6–12 lines thick.
Woods and their borders. New England, Frost; New York, Peck. Peck, Boleti of the U.S.
In mixed woods and in new clearings near Bartram’s Garden, Philadelphia, Pa. McIlvaine.