Old man of the woods — stain sequence
Strobilomyces sp. Genus
Angles captured. Five field frames, then the bench: the whole fruitbody, the cap cut, and timed section frames at zero, two and ten minutes, plus the spore print on white and black card. The two Wells fruitbodies were cut together; frames are filed to whichever fruitbody is the subject, and a few show both halves.
Morphology
Cap 4–6 cm, densely woolly with soft grey-black shaggy scales over a pale ground; margin hung with veil rags. Pore surface grey-white, coarse. Stipe shaggy, coloured like the cap. Cut flesh whitish, staining salmon-red within two minutes and darkening toward black by ten — the full sequence is in the gallery. Spore print blackish brown, coarse pored texture.
Habitat & substrate
Litter under hemlock and hardwood, terrestrial, near TM0165.
Lookalikes & what rules them out
Nothing else here looks like this. The shaggy monochrome wool, the pored underside, the white-to-red-to-black stain and the near-black print are all Strobilomyces; the timed frames turn the stain — usually a one-line claim — into documented evidence.
To confirm this identification
Nothing for the genus. S. strobilaceus and S. confusus separate on spore ornamentation under a microscope; the soft appressed scales lean strobilaceus in the broad sense and the entry stops there.
Notes
The stain series was photographed at 0, 2 and 10 minutes by design — the first timed character documentation in the guide. TM0165 was sectioned in the same sitting; its half of the series continues in that entry. Frame assignment supplied by the compiler on 21 August; two frames from the series (#5280, #5294) did not survive the phone transfer and are not on disk.
Found at Walker Pond Rd area, Sturbridge, MA on Thursday, 20 August 2026 at 11:59. 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