POLYPOREI 195 



gus. I have not found it necessary, and it is cer- 

 tainly needless in a young and tender specimen. 



ROUGH -STEMMED BOLETUS 

 Boletus scaber 



This is a very common mushroom in our woods 

 all through the summer and autumn, in reasonably 

 moist weather. It is figured in Plate 21. The 

 cap of an average specimen expands four inches or 

 more, is of a brown or brownish buff color, and vis- 

 cid when moist. The pore -surface is dingy white, 

 the tube orifices being quite minute and round — not 

 so conspicuously angular or honey -combed as in 

 other species — and with occasional reddish stains, 

 presumably a deposit from the floating spores, 

 which are tawny reddish. The flesh is dirty white, 

 the stem solid, contracting upwards, and rough with 

 fibrous brownish scaly points — whence the name 

 ''scaber'" — often arranged somewhat in vertical lines. 

 Epicures fail to agree as to the esculent qualities of 

 this mushroom. It is certainly inferior to the edulis. 



THE YELLOW- CRACKED BOLETUS 

 Boletus subtomentosus 



The general contour of the present species — B. 

 subtomentosus (Plate 22, fig. i) — resembles the fore- 

 going, but it is easily distinguished by 

 Specific the color of its cap and tube surface, 

 qualities the pileus being usually olive, olive- 

 brown, or red of various shades ; the 

 color, however, does not extend to the flesh beneath 

 the peeled cuticle, as in B. chrysenteron. Fig. 2. The 



