Dark red-brown bolete by the water
Boletaceae Family
Angles captured. Two frames where it stood in the litter, then four holding it over the water — the last four are the same fruitbody, not a second one.
Morphology
Cap 8–10 cm, deep chestnut to maroon-brown, dry and matt, margin even. Underside poroid, ochre-yellow, with a small insect visible on the pore surface in one frame. Stipe stout, brown, paler toward the apex.
Habitat & substrate
Leaf litter on a low bank at the water's edge, mixed hardwood above.
Lookalikes & what rules them out
A dark red-brown cap over yellow pores is a common combination across several bolete genera and cannot be resolved on colour alone. Nothing here rules out the red-pored group, which contains species that cause serious gastrointestinal poisoning.
To confirm this identification
Whether the pores or the flesh bruise blue, and how fast. Bluing narrows the genus. It is an identification character only — bruising says nothing either way about edibility, and several of the most dramatic bluers are harmless while some non-bluers are not.
Notes
Photographed first where it grew and then held up over the water, which changed the apparent colour and size enough that it initially read as two separate specimens. Corrected. An earlier version called the bluing test a way to separate harmless boletes from ones worth avoiding. That was wrong, and wrong in the dangerous direction: bruising does not track toxicity. The red-pored, blue-staining group is avoided because of what it is, not because it stains.
Found at Massasoit Rd area, Worcester, MA on Wednesday, 12 August 2026 at 17:59. See the full walk for that day's weather and everything else recorded.
Others in this group
Large orange-brown bolete, uprootedBoletaceae · Jul 31Low–moderate
Bolete with boletinoid poresBoletinellus, Suillus or Phylloporus · Jul 31Moderate
Olive-brown boleteBoletaceae · Aug 6Low–moderate
Rosy cap with golden gill-platescf. Phylloporus · Aug 6Moderate
Dark chestnut boleteBoletaceae · Aug 6Moderate
Wine-red boleteBoletaceae · Aug 6Moderate
Orange-capped boletesBoletaceae · Aug 6Low–moderate
Red-capped bolete with yellow poresBoletaceae · Aug 8Moderate