White Boletes

[Laure]

I am looking info on white boletes. I find them in the field with all characteristics of boletes except completely white. can anyone help?

[Frog]

Boletes come in many colours, but there is a white fungal infection, probably a Hypomyces, that I often see attacking local boletes. Take a close look to see if the white appears to be a separate layer coating the mushroom surface. The mushroom itself usually becomes deformed by the infection, so when an area is infected you can see healthier looking boletes out towards the perimeter of the affected area, and the ones in the middle look more unhealthy, the white usually covers and occludes the spore (spongy) underside. This white is usually a very white-white, sometimes almost blue in its whiteness.

If the white (usually more of a natural or beige-y white) seems to be the bolete's actual colour, there are many online and text resources: I have boletes of NA at home and can take a look for white local species.

cheers,
frog

[Frog]

Hi again Laure,

Actually, since I don't know how familiar you are with mushrooms, I should also ask whether you are sure the underside was spongy, as opposed to eg. poroid and firmer. The diversity of fungi this year has been awesome! And we've been seeing some white Boletopsis and beige/white Albatrellus lately.

[Frog]

I reviewed North American Boletes and found one species that is white (well, beige-white, darkening in age) that is known to be found in your/our region: Boletus barrowsii.
The others I found that were Western NA and whitish at least in youth, have not been found in this region, but since mushrooms don't read handbooks, I'll mention them too in case you are interested: Leccinium barrowsii, Suillus occidentalis, Suillus pallidiceps, Leccinium arbuticola, Leccinium holopus var. holopus, Suillus occidentalis, Suillus placidus.
cheers,
frog
(last post from me in this thread :-)

[Laure]

Hello frog,
I checked at the time some pictures of boletus barrowsii and none showed the pure white of my specimens, also if memory serves not as fleshy in the middle of the stem and other general caracteristics. As for Leccinium and Suillus I rulled them out at the time because of the patterns of both the spongy body under the cap and the whebbing paterns on the stems. I would like to check the species you refered to. Can I do that on the web? I have no books as of yet (the good ones seem so pricy).
To add to the mistery a few feet away I found some pure white Amanita muscariaor so it seems... I am very familiar with that specy in red and it doesn't look like a spring Amanita, can THEY have veil remenants on the cap? Deer ate them before I came back with the camera.

[Laure]

Also: found the Boletes three times in two different locations and Amanitas "nivea" twice two locations,within a few miles of each other.
No Hypomyces here gorgeous well defined specimens.

[Frog]

The white Amanita might be A. smithii.
cheers,
frog

[Laure]

A way to check descriptions and pictures on line (Boletes,Amanitas,Suillus and Leccineum)???
Thanks for your postings.

[Frog]

You could enter the latin names in a search engine, such as Google images, and if anything looks like your specimen, enter that latin name in a search engine, or in Tom Volk's Fungi or Mykoweb or Roger's Mushrooms or PNW and other such sites.