Purple boletus (Boletus purpureus) photo and description

Purple Boletus (Boletus purpureus)

Photo by: Felice Di Palma

Description:

The hat is 5 to 20 cm in diameter, spherical, then convex, the edges are slightly wavy. The skin is velvety, dry, in wet weather slightly mucous, slightly tuberculate. It is unevenly colored: on a grayish or olive-gray background, red-brown, reddish, wine or pink zones, covered with dark blue spots when pressed. Often eaten by insects, yellow flesh is visible in places of damage.

The tubular layer is lemon-yellow, then greenish-yellow, the pores are small, blood-red or orange-red, dark blue when pressed.

Spore powder olive or olive brown, spore size 10.5-13.5 * 4-5.5 microns.

Leg 6-15 cm high, 2-7 cm in diameter, first tuberous, then cylindrical with club-shaped thickening. The color is lemon-yellow with a dense reddish mesh, blackish-blue when pressed.

The flesh is firm at a young age, lemon-yellow, when damaged, it instantly becomes black-blue, then after a long time it acquires a wine hue. The taste is sweetish, the smell is sour-fruity, weak.

Spread:

The fungus is quite rare. Distributed in Our Country, in Ukraine, in European countries, mainly in places with a warm climate. Prefers calcareous soils, more often lives in hilly and mountainous areas. It is found in broad-leaved and mixed forests next to beeches and oaks. Fruits in June-September.

The similarity:

It looks like edible oaks Boletus luridus, Boletus erythropus, as well as the satanic mushroom (Boletus satanas), inedible bitter beautiful boletus (Boletus calopus), pink-skinned boletus (Boletus rhodoxanthus) and some other bolets with a similar color.

Evaluation:

Poisonous when raw or undercooked. In Western literature, it is positioned as inedible or poisonous. Due to the rarity, it is better not to collect.