White boletus (Leccinum holopus)
Systematics:- Department: Basidiomycota (Basidiomycetes)
- Subdivision: Agaricomycotina (Agaricomycetes)
- Class: Agaricomycetes (Agaricomycetes)
- Subclass: Agaricomycetidae (Agaricomycetes)
- Order: Boletales
- Family: Boletaceae
- Genus: Leccinum (Obabok)
- Species: Leccinum holopus (White boletus)
Synonyms:
Marsh birch
- Leccinum niveum
- Birch birch
- White birch
- Swamp
White boletus hat:
Whitish of various shades (cream, light gray, pinkish), cushion-shaped, close to hemispherical in youth, then becomes more diffuse, although completely, unlike the usual boletus, it rarely unfolds; diameter of the cap is 3-8 cm. The flesh is white, tender, without any special smell or taste.
Spore-bearing layer:
In youth it is white, with age it acquires a grayish color. The tube openings are uneven, angular.
Spore powder:
Olive brown.
White boletus leg:
Height 7-10 cm (in dense grass it can be even higher), thickness 0.8 - 1.5 cm, narrows at the cap. The color is white, covered with white scales, which darken with age or when dry. The flesh of the leg is fibrous, but softer in comparison with the usual boletus; at the base it becomes bluish.
Spread:
White boletus is found from mid-July to early October in deciduous and mixed forests (forming mycorrhiza mainly with birch), prefers damp places, willingly grows along the edges of bogs. It comes across not very rarely, but does not differ in special productivity.
Similar species:
It differs from the closely related boletus (Leccinum scabrum) in a very light color of the cap. Other similar species of the genus Leccinum (for example, the notorious white boletus (Leccinum percandidum)) actively change color at the fracture, which is the reason for combining into the concept of "boletus".
Edibility:
The mushroom is, of course, edible; in the books he is scolded for wateriness and nondescriptness, it is unprofitable to compare it with a normal boletus, but I would argue. The white boletus has a not so stiff leg, and the cap, if it is possible to bring it home, emits no more water than the cap of an ordinary boletus.
Remarks
One way or another, I do not share the replicated skepticism in relation to the white boletus. Maybe I was just lucky with this mushroom - but I never found old, "ragged", through and through wormy white boletus. Everything that I came across was neat, young, juicy. Not watery, but juicy. It is curious that the texture of the leg was practically no different from the texture of the cap: the knife entered it without crunching, and did not leave tousled ends (a sure sign that the boletus is old and its leg was numb to the point of impossibility). White boletus is also distinguished by quantitative decency and will never present a person with a strange dilemma: it’s somehow stupid not to take good mushrooms, and you still want to walk around the forest.