Order Hymenomycetes. Tribe Pileati. 



Plate XVII. 



BOLETUS CASTANEUS, 5.//.«r^ 



Chestnut Boletus. 



Spec. Char. Boletus castaneus. Pileus three or four inches broad, convexo-expanded, at length depressed, 

 but remaining broadly pulvinate iu the centre, firm, subvillous or optike-velvety, cinnamon-coloured, or chestnut 

 inclining to brick-red. Plesh thick, white, stained beneath the epidermis with the colour of the pileus, not changing 

 colour, viscid, insipid. Tubes free, not reaching to the margin, short, round, wliite, changing to dingy yellow. 

 Spores white. Stem at fii-st stulfed, then hollow, sub-bulbous, attenuated upwards, sometimes swollen in the 

 middle, more rarely nearly equal, and lengthened. 



Boletus castaneus, Btdliard, Fries, Berkeley, Persoon. 



Hah. In woodland pastures, parks, &c. Not common. 



It is always pleasant to find rare objects in our researches, otherwise there is no great reason for 

 regret tliat this Boletus is not often met with. llr. Berkeley cites only one habitat, his own parish in North- 

 amptonshire ; Miss F. Reed found the specimens from which her drawing was taken at Brill, under old 

 Scotch pines ; and Mrs. Hussey once detected a few in the rectory-field at Hayes, but unfortunately much 

 decomposed; the spores, however, lay thick on the grass beneath each faded pileus, so as to afi'ord evi- 

 dence that if not /j?«-e white, as Fries supposes them to be, they are as nearly so as justifies placing them 

 under Leiicospons. Several Agarics, as A. deliciosus and some Russulas, have ochraceous spores, but they 

 are not, therefore, rejected from the natural group with which other general features identify them. 



B. castaneus has a velvet coat, but may be known from the members of the subtomentose family by 

 not turning blue and green when cut, as they do. It resembles in colouring and configuration B.granu- 

 latus, but that otherwise beautiful fungus is veiled iu slime ! not a pleasant veil to finger ; but it dis- 

 appears, and drops of sweet milk exude from the margin of the pileus when bruised or broken, standing 

 like pearls on the lemon-coloured tubes, then hardening into minute cheeses, from which dried grains 

 comes its name gramdatm. This Boletus granulatus has ochraceo-ferruginous spores, which darken the 

 yellow under-surface in age ; it is esculent, and abundantly gregarious under a gi'oup of old Scotch pines 

 growing on the ancient camp at Keston, There are but two or tluee English Boletuses which are not to 

 be found in this immediate neighbourhood, and those, B. strohilaceus and B. cyanescens, we never expect, 

 from their extreme rarity, to be so fortunate as to encounter ; both these belong to the same subdivision 

 [Leucosponis) as our poor B. castaneus, which we have left, to speak of others ; but then there is so little 

 to say about it : neither gifted with qualities which recommend uglier relatives to every one possessing a 

 palate, nor afflicted with such as cause torments to the unwary, " it is rare " is the one point in favour of 

 bringing it forward. 



