280 days of Urbpandemonium #170

[urbpan]

If a mushroom is red and yellow, and has a spongy underside instead of gills, it is by definition a "bicolored bolete." But it may not be THE bicolored bolete. There are a number of mushrooms meeting that description, some described as edible and others as sickening.


Mushrooms with spongy undersides (the spore producing underside is called a hymenophore) are generally called "boletes," although that word refers to a genus that fits a small fraction of species that it once did.


Another field marking is that the mushroom stains blue when handled--you can see the gently bruised hymenophore here. The edible species in this complex bruises very quickly, while the poisonous one bruises more slowly. This is too subjective a field marking for me to have tried to eat any red-and-yellow bolete mushrooms.


This one claims to be Baorangia bicolor* but how much do we trust it?

*The generic name—derived from the Chinese words bao ("thin") and rang ("hymenium")—refers to the characteristically thin hymenophore, which distinguishes it from all other Boletaceae genera.