Admirable Bolete

Wow, Coral. I truly and sincerely am greatly thankful that you took all the time to tediously add all of your fungal collection to the mission, that right there is a fine example of selflessness! That is truly amazing. :)

And you may be onto something with suillus family.....any larch trees that far south?

too lite of a color to be b. rusellii although the size is correct. what trees or shrubs are nearby?

Hmmm... now B. mirabilis hasn't occured south of San Francisco, it occurs in north California, so it's certainly not in the right habitat to be that. But as for everything else, it shows the physical appearance of B. mirabilis, but the size is small for a mature bolete anyways (5 cms). Additionally, I had the realization that it could also be a long-dried Suillus slippery jack member, eaten beyond recognition. This is quite a case!

I might tends towards b. mirabilis.....although it may be too large of a specimen even though it is quite old....look for other specimens next year earlier in the season and post pics!

Oh, and one more thing; I see how your fungal findings are coming from California, and it'd be nice to showcase them in the Fungi of the American Southwest mission here: http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/8078711 Please feel free to help out. Thanks. :)

Sounds great! I'm looking forward to more spottings. You're fortunate to be finding any mushrooms in the winter, while I walk around like a madman through local parks and find nothing! Hahha good luck Coral, take it easy. :)

I'm glad you're happy! I'm not so sure, however. The bolete doesn't look like it's been rotten, but there's most likely a hungry squirrel around. Now if the cap pores have been munched on, they should stain blue as in B. appendiculatus, but I don't see any of it (next mission is to snap shots of the absolute underside of cap! Yes, that means plucking it outta the ground.) :) Oh well, that's my best shot at it.

You're welcome Coral. It's my passion, and I'm glad to help you as I learn something myself. :) An agaric is highly unlikely. This mushroom has pores instead of gills, and so it belongs to the Boletaceae family. The underside of the usually large and robust caps will have various-sized pores that resemble a sponge, and a usual characteristic is that they bruise blue or green with interaction with it. It might be a Butter Bolete, boletus appendiculatus, but I'm basing that just on its view alone, time to actually key it out. :)

Now that has a better chance of identification!! I'll let you know right now that it's almost certainly a bolete, I'm going to try to key out the species.