Brown birch (Leccinum scabrum) photo and description

Brown birch (Leccinum scabrum)

Systematics:
  • Department: Basidiomycota (Basidiomycetes)
  • Subdivision: Agaricomycotina (Agaricomycetes)
  • Class: Agaricomycetes (Agaricomycetes)
  • Subclass: Agaricomycetidae (Agaricomycetes)
  • Order: Boletales
  • Family: Boletaceae
  • Genus: Leccinum (Obabok)
  • Species: Leccinum scabrum (Brown birch)
    Other names for the mushroom:
  • Obabok
  • Beryozovik
  • Common boletus

Synonyms:

  • Common boletus

  • Beryozovik

  • Obabok

  • Birch obabok

Boletus

Hat:

In a boletus, the cap can vary from light gray to dark brown (the color obviously depends on the growing conditions and the type of tree with which the mycorrhiza is formed). The form is semi-spherical, then pillow-shaped, naked or thin-clotted, up to 15 cm in diameter, slightly slimy in wet weather. The pulp is white, does not change color or slightly turns pink, with a pleasant "mushroom" smell and taste. In old mushrooms, the flesh becomes very spongy, watery.

Spore-bearing layer:

White, then dirty gray, the tubes are long, often eaten by someone, easily separated from the cap.

Spore powder:

Olive brown.

Leg:

The length of the boletus leg can reach 15 cm, the diameter is up to 3 cm, solid. The shape of the leg is cylindrical, slightly widened below, gray-whitish, covered with dark longitudinal scales. The pulp of the leg with age becomes woody-fibrous, tough.

Spread

Brown birch (Leccinum scabrum) grows from early summer to late autumn in deciduous (preferably birch) and mixed forests, in some years it is very abundant. It is sometimes found in surprising quantities in spruce plantations interspersed with birch. Gives good harvests in very young birch forests, appearing there almost the first among commercial mushrooms.

Similar species

The genus of Pod birch trees has many species and subspecies, many of them are very similar to each other. The main difference between boletus boletus (a group of species united under this name) and boletus boletus (another group of species) is that boletus boletus turn blue at the break, while boletus boletus does not. Thus, it is easy to distinguish between them, although the meaning of such an arbitrary classification is not entirely clear to me. Moreover, in fact, there is actually enough among the "boletus" and species that change color - for example, pink boletus (Leccinum oxydabile). In general, the further into the forest, the more varieties of paints.

It is more useful to distinguish the Brown Birch (and all decent mushrooms) from the gall mushroom. The latter, in addition to the disgusting taste, is distinguished by the pinkish color of the tubules, a special "greasy" texture of the pulp, a peculiar mesh pattern on the leg (the pattern is like that of a porcini mushroom, only dark), a tuberous leg, unusual places of growth (around stumps, near ditches, in dark conifers forests, etc.). In practice, confusing these mushrooms is not dangerous, but offensive.

Edibility

Brown birch - Normal edible mushroom . Some (Western) sources indicate that only the caps are edible, and the legs are supposedly too hard. Absurd! Cooked hats are just different with a nauseating gelatinous consistency, while the legs always remain strong, collected. The only thing that all reasonable people agree on is that the tubular layer of old mushrooms must be removed. (And, ideally, take it back to the forest.)

 Boletus

Remarks

Despite the seeming routine, the birch is a rather mysterious mushroom. First, fruiting. For several years, it can grow in Homeric quantities everywhere and everywhere. In the early 90s, boletus was, without exaggeration, the most widespread mushroom in the Naro-Fominsk region. He was loaded with buckets, troughs, trunks. And in one year he disappeared, and he still does not. There were enough whites as they are (despite the crowds of greedy summer residents), and the boletus has disappeared. From time to time, only monstrous freaks come across: small, thin, twisted. 

In the summer of 2002, for obvious reasons, there were no mushroom pickers at all, and what do you think? occasionally quite decent boletus boletus came across. Something will happen next time, I thought.

And the next time was not long in coming. The summer and autumn of 2003 turned out to be so fruitful that all speculations about the degeneration of the boletus can be safely sent to the dump of opinions. The birch trees went in June and walked and walked and walked without interruption until the beginning of October. The field, overgrown with young birch trees, was completely trampled by mushroom pickers - but not a single good person returned without a bag of these brown birch trees. The forest edges were cluttered with stools. Three times in a row (without missing a day) I could not get to the place where I expected to meet a black lump, my character let me down: I immediately grabbed all the young and strong birch trees that I could only see, and after 100 meters my hike ended: it's banal there were containers. I am sure that for many years the 2003 season will be remembered as a fairy tale, but then the sensations were different. It seemedthat literally before my eyes, the value of the boletus is being devalued.