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Porcini mushrooms are rightfully considered the masters of the forest – they are very popular because they have a delicious taste and are suitable for all types of cooking.
There are not so many types of porcini mushrooms, and they are all exceptionally tasty both fresh and dried. In the forests of central Our Country, you can most often find white birch mushroom and white pine mushroom. As the name suggests, some of them are found in deciduous forests, while others are found in coniferous forests.
In this article, photos and descriptions of porcini mushrooms and their varieties, information about twin mushrooms and other interesting facts are offered to your attention.
White mushroom and his photo
Category: edible.
White mushroom cap ((Boletus edulis) (diameter 8-30 cm):matte, slightly convex. It has a reddish, brown, yellow, lemon or dark orange color.
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Pay attention to the photo of the porcini mushroom: the edges of its cap are usually lighter than the dark center. The cap is smooth to the touch, in dry weather it often cracks, and after rain it becomes shiny and a little slimy. The skin does not separate from the pulp.
Leg (height 9-26 cm): usually lighter than the cap – light brown, sometimes with a reddish tinge. As with almost all boletes, it tapers upward, has the shape of a cylinder, a club, less often a low barrel. Almost all covered with a mesh of light veins.
Tubular layer: white, in old mushrooms it can be yellowish or olive. Easily separated from the hat. Small pores are round in shape.
As you can see in the photo of porcini mushrooms, they all have strong, juicy flesh of pure white color, which eventually changes to yellowish. Under the skin it can be dark brown or reddish. Has no pronounced odor.
Doubles: edible representatives of the Boletaceae family and gall fungus (Tylopilus felleus). But the gall does not have such a dense pulp, and its tubular layer has a pinkish tint (in white fungus it is white). True, old porcini mushrooms can have the same shade. Another difference is that when pressed, the tubular layer of the gall fungus becomes distinctly reddish or brownish. And most importantly – the taste of the inedible gall mushroom corresponds to the name, while the white one has a pleasant one.
When growing: white mushrooms grow from mid-July to the end of September. It is more common in wooded areas than in plains. It is one of the few mushrooms common in the Arctic zone.
Where can I find: under firs, oaks and birches. More often in forests, trees in which are older than 50 years, next to chanterelles, greenfinches and green russula. White fungus does not like waterlogged, swampy and peaty soils.
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Eating: has excellent taste.
Over the years, mushroom pickers have found real record-breaking mushrooms. For example, a porcini mushroom found in the Moscow region weighed almost 10 kg and had a cap diameter of almost 60 cm. In second place was a porcini mushroom cut near Vladimir. He weighed 6 kg 750 g.
Use in traditional medicine (data are not confirmed and have not been clinically tested!): white fungus, although in small doses, contains an antibiotic. This mushroom is used to prevent tuberculosis and infections of the gastrointestinal tract, the broth improves immunity and is especially useful after a serious illness, frostbite and complex forms of cancer have long been treated with tincture.
Birch porcini mushroom: photo and twins
Category: edible.
head birch porcini mushroom (Boletus betulicolus) (diameter 6-16 cm) shiny, can be either almost white or ocher or yellowish. Bulky, but becomes flatter over time. Feels smooth to the touch.
Leg (height 6-12,5 cm): white or brownish, has the shape of an elongated barrel, solid.
Tubular layer: the length of the tubes is up to 2 cm; the pores are small and round.
Pulp: white and tasteless.
Twins of the birch porcini mushroom – all edible representatives of the Boletaceae family and gall fungus (Tylopilus felleus), which has meshes on the stem, the tubular layer turns pink with age, and the flesh has a bitter taste.
Other names: spikelet (this is the name of the white birch fungus in the Kuban, since it appears at the time when the rye ripens (ears).
When growing: from mid-July to early October in the Murmansk region, the Far East region, Siberia, as well as in Western European countries.
Look at the photo of a birch white fungus in nature – it grows under birch trees or next to them, on forest edges. Mushrooms of the Boletaceae family are unique in that they can form mycorrhiza (symbiotic fusion) with more than 50 tree species.
Eating: has excellent taste. Can be boiled, fried, dried, salted.
Application in traditional medicine: does not apply.
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White mushroom pine (upland) and its photo
Category: edible.
white pine mushroom (Boletus pinicola) has a hat with a diameter of 7-30 cm, matte, with small tubercles and a network of small wrinkles. Usually brown, rarely with a reddish or purple tint, darker in the center. In young mushrooms, it has the shape of a hemisphere, then it becomes almost flat or slightly convex. Feels dry to the touch, but in rainy weather becomes slippery and sticky.
Pay attention to the photo of the legs of a white pine mushroom – its height is 8-17 cm, it has a mesh pattern or small tubercles. The stalk is thick and short, expanding from top to bottom. Lighter than the cap, often light brown, but may be of other shades.
Tubular layer: yellowish-olive with frequent round pores.
Like the rest of the porcini mushrooms, the photos of which are presented on this page, the pulp of the pine boletus is dense and fleshy, white on the cut and smells of toasted nuts.
The twins of this variety of white fungus are all edible members of the Boletaceae family and the inedible gall mushroom (Tylopilus felleus), the tubular layer of which has a pinkish color.
When growing: from the end of June to the beginning of October in the European part of Our Country and southern Siberia, as well as in Western Europe and Central America.
Where can I find: singly or in groups grows next to pines, less often near oaks, chestnuts, beeches and firs.
Eating: considered one of the most delicious mushrooms. It is used in any form – dried, boiled (especially in soups), fried or in preparations. It is best to pick young mushrooms, as old ones are almost always wormy.
Application in traditional medicine: does not apply.
Other names for varieties of porcini mushroom
Boletus porcini mushroom is often called: boletus, cow, grandmother, baby, belevik, striker, capercaillie, good-natured, yellow, feather grass, konovyash, konovyatik, korovatik, cowshed, cowshed, korovik, mullein, mullein, bear, bear, pan, cowshed, dear mushroom.
Another name for the pine porcini mushroom is boletus dine-loving, upland porcini mushroom.