The red-capped bolete that was everywhere
Boletaceae Family
#4827
#4828
#4829
#4830
#4831
#4832
#4833
#4834
#4856
#4857
#4858
#4859
#4879
#4880
#4949
#4950
#4961
#4962
#4963
#4964
#4965
#4966
#4967
#4968
#4969
#4970
#4971
#4972
#4973
#4974
#4975
#4976
#4977
#5022
#5023
#5156
#5157
#5158
#5159
#5160Angles captured. Thirty-three field frames spanning the whole morning, plus the spore print. The run from #4961 covers roughly twenty feet of trail in ninety-five seconds.
Morphology
Cap 3–10 cm depending on age. Deep red when small, the red diffusing and breaking up as the fruitbody expands until mature caps are rose-brown to dull pink over a paler ground. Pore surface yellow, becoming olive-yellow with age. Stipe stout, pale below the cap, often flushed pink toward the base.
Habitat & substrate
Sandy and gravelly trail edges, pine and mixed hardwood, across the entire length of the walk rather than in one patch.
Lookalikes & what rules them out
The colour change with age is the diagnostic observation here, and it is not something a single photograph can show. Small deep-red buttons and large dull-pink caps read as two different species until they are seen in sequence. A yellow pore surface under a red-then-fading cap places this in the boletes with confidence; the species is another matter.
To confirm this identification
Whether the pores bruise blue on handling. Several red-and-yellow boletes are edible and several cause serious gastrointestinal poisoning, and bruising is the first sorting character.
Notes
The most abundant fungus on the walk by a wide margin, present from the first hundred metres to the last. Spore print taken (card 13). Abundance on this scale is itself data: it says more about the ground and the season than any single fruitbody does, which is why this is recorded as one entry rather than a dozen.
Found at Coldbrook Rd area, Hubbardston, MA on Friday, 14 August 2026 at 10:03. 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