“Fungo innocente e che non può cagionare alcun danno, non molto ricercato a motivo, senza dubbio, del cambiamento di colore in cui va soggetto la sua carne allorchè viene rotta o compressa.”—Vitt.
Bot. Char. This fungus presents itself under two distinct forms; in the first, the B. aurantiacus of Bull., the pileus (generally rather downy, but sometimes rough) is of a beautiful deep orange hue; in the other it is cinereous.
In both cases its shape is that of a hemisphere of from three to seven inches across, the surface of which becomes viscid when moist, and is minutely downy. In the first variety, the stem is rough with black, in the second with orange scales.
Half a foot is its average height; it is attenuated upwards. While young, it is very thick in proportion to the pileus, and exhibits frequently the traces of a floccose veil. The flesh is thick and flabby, of a dingy white, not greatly changeable in young specimens, but deepening in colour when old, and acquiring a vinous tint;[162] the tubes are of a dirty white, those that surround the stem being shorter than the rest.
The odour of this fungus is slight; the taste subacid; the seminal dust copious, and tawny-ferruginous. It may be cooked like the B. edulis, and has an agreeable flavour; but being more viscid in substance, it requires when stewed to be thinned with water; when dried, it loses all odour, and is then insipid and unfit for food.
BOLETUS LURIDUS.
[Plate VI. Figs. 3, 4, and 5.]
Nothing can be more accurate than Mr. Berkeley’s description of this species, which I therefore subjoin:—“Woods. Summer and autumn. Common. Pileus two to six inches broad, convex, expanded, minutely tomentose, olive, brick-red, pinkish, cream-coloured, or ferruginous-brown. Flesh more or less yellow, changing to blue.[163] Tubes free, yellow or greenish; their orifices of a beautiful red or bright orange, quite simple, round. Spores olivaceous-ochre. Stem very variable in length, bulbous, tomentose, sometimes quite smooth, red with ferruginous or the brightest yellow shades, solid, generally more or less marked or reticulated with crimson-red, very deleterious”(?[164]).