Deep red bolete with reticulate stipe
Boletaceae Family
Angles captured. 8 frames of one subject.
Morphology
Cap 5–7 cm, deep wine-red to crimson, dry and finely felted, hemispherical and barely opening. Stipe thick and club-shaped, vivid orange-yellow, coarsely reticulate — covered in a raised net. Flesh pale where nicked.
Habitat & substrate
Deep oak litter among boulders on a wooded slope.
Lookalikes & what rules them out
A red cap over a coarsely reticulate orange-yellow stipe is a narrow combination — the Rubroboletus or Butyriboletus area. Several of that group are toxic.
To confirm this identification
Cut it. Blueing speed, pore colour and whether the reticulation is red or yellow all matter.
Notes
Best-looking find of the day, and directly comparable to TM0059 at Leominster — but this one actually shows the reticulate stipe that TM0059 never did.
Found at Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary, Princeton, MA on Saturday, 8 August 2026 at 11:03. 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