Plate 63, Figure 176.—Boletinus porosus. Viscid when moist, dull reddish brown (natural size). Copyright.
Strobilomyces strobilaceus Berk. Edible.—This plant has a peculiar name, both the genus and the species referring to the cone-like appearance of the cap with its coarse, crowded, dark brown scales, bearing a fancied resemblance to a pine cone. It is very easily distinguished from other species of Boletus because of this character of the cap. The plant has a very wide distribution though it is not usually very common. The plant is 8–14 cm. high, the cap 5–10 cm. broad, and the stem 1–2 cm. in thickness.
The pileus is hemispherical to convex, shaggy from numerous large blackish, coarse, hairy, projecting scales. The margin of the cap is fringed with scales and fragments of the veil which covers the tubes in the young plants. The flesh is whitish, but soon changes to reddish color, and later to black where wounded or cut. The tubes are adnate, whitish, becoming brown and blackish in the older plants. The mouths of the tubes are large and angular, and change color where bruised, as does the flesh of the cap. The stem is even, or sometimes tapers upward, often grooved near the apex, very tomentose or scaly with soft scales of the same color as the cap. The spores are in mass dark brown, nearly globose, roughened, and 10–12 µ long. Figs. 177–179 are from plants collected at Ithaca, N. Y. Another European plant, S. floccopus Vahl, is said by Peck to occur in the United States, but is much more rare. The only difference in the two noted by Peck in the case of the American plants is that the tubes are depressed around the stem in S. floccopus.
Plate 64, Figure 177.—Strobilomyces strobilaceus. Scales of cap dark brown or black, flesh white but soon changing to reddish and later to black where wounded, stem same color but lighter (natural size). Copyright.
Figure 178.—Strobilomyces strobilaceus. Sections of plants. Copyright.