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 fine and yellow, ageing olive-yellow and staining darker where handled. Stipe stout and deep maroon-red. Flesh yellow, and bruising blue-black at any cut or broken surface — frame #5022 shows it plainly at both the socket where the stipe was pulled from the cap and the cut top of the stipe itself, a dark ring following each wound.
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.
The blue bruising is the second determination, and it narrows the field considerably. A red cap over yellow pores with a red stipe and yellow flesh that blues promptly places this among the blue-staining red-and-yellow boletes — a group that excludes the non-staining brown boletes entirely. The pores here are yellow rather than red, which rules out part of that group again.
To confirm this identification
Species-level determination. The useful remaining characters are the pore colour on a very young button, whether the stipe surface is reticulate or merely dotted, and how quickly the bluing fades. The bluing question is answered.
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.
Several members of the blue-staining red-and-yellow group cause serious gastrointestinal poisoning. The bruising narrows what this is; it does not make it safe.
Corrected. This entry originally listed the bruising test as outstanding while the evidence was already in frame #5022 — photographed indoors a few minutes after the stipe was removed, before the print was set. A working shot taken for one purpose turned out to carry the entry's most useful observation.
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 poresSuillus or Phylloporus · Jul 31Moderate
Olive-brown boleteBoletaceae · Aug 6Low–moderate
Dark chestnut boleteBoletaceae · Aug 6Moderate
Wine-red boleteBoletaceae · Aug 6Moderate
Orange-capped boletesBoletaceae · Aug 6Low–moderate
Red-capped bolete with yellow poresBoletaceae · Aug 8Moderate
Yellow-brown boleteBoletaceae · Aug 8Low–moderate