King Bolete

The fungus produces fruit body from late summer to late autumn, from plain area to mountains in broadleaf forests especially: Fagus sylvatica, Quercus robur, Q. petrea, Castanea sativa and Betula sp., also under conifers: Abies alba, Picea excelsa, Pseudotsuga sp., Pinus sylvestris, P. radiata, P. nigra. It is very common and widely distributed, mostly on acid soils.

It has a cap 5-30 cm in diameter, hemispherical, then convex sometimes even depressed. The color is more or less intense brown, reddish-fawn or greyish brown, sometimes even whitish often with paler margin delimited by a permanent whitish wire. The tubules are white then yellow and finally olive green, long and relatively fine, free or rounded to the stem, easily separable from cuticle. Pores are small, round, white, then yellow and finally grayish olive, typically greenish gray in the middle stage of development, immutable to the touch.

Species that are similar to B. edulis are: Boletus variipes – it has a dry, tan cap and grows with oak, and Tylopilus felleus is similar when young but tastes bitter.