Imleria badia

Description
Mushroom Identification
Look-Alikes
History
Synonyms and Varieties
Video

Description

Imleria badia, also known as the Bay Bolete, is a mushroom found in Europe and North America. It grows in forests, often near coniferous trees, and can be found on the ground or on decaying tree stumps. Here are some key points about it:

Appearance

The Bay Bolete has a brownish cap with small yellowish pores underneath that turn blue-gray when touched. Its stem is smooth and similar in color to the cap but paler.
Edibility

It is safe to eat and is considered a good edible mushroom. In fact, its taste is quite similar to the popular Penny Bun mushroom.
Uses

In central Mexico, it's collected and sold in markets. Some people may have allergic reactions to it, and the blue discoloration when bruised can be off-putting, but it disappears when cooked. The flavor is mild compared to its well-known relatives.
Preparation

It's best to use younger mushrooms for eating, but more mature ones can be suitable for drying. Since the pores can absorb water, it's recommended to wipe them instead of washing before using in the kitchen. Young mushrooms can even be eaten raw.
Culinary Uses

A single Bay Bolete is usually large enough to make a meal for two. You can use it in recipes that call for Ceps, Porcini, King Boletes, or Penny Bun Boletes. These mushrooms can be dried for later use or frozen after cooking. You can fry Bay Bolete in butter, use it in meat or fish recipes, and even pickle it in vinegar, wine, or olive oil for later use in sauces or soups.
Mushroom Dyes

The fruit bodies of the Bay Bolete can be used to make mushroom dyes. Depending on the mordant used, you can obtain various colors, including yellow, orange, gold, and green-brown. Without a mordant, it produces a yellow color.

Common names: Bay Bolete, Brown Bolete, Daphne Mushroom, Bulbous Mushroom.

Mushroom Identification

Cap

The cap is 1.57 to 5.91 inches (4 to 15 cm) wide, starts off rounded and becomes flatter over time. It's sticky when fresh but dries out quickly. It's usually brown to reddish-brown, and the edge has a small overhanging part.
Pore Surface

The underside of the mushroom is pale yellow, turning yellow and eventually a dirty yellowish-brown. It can change color to grayish-blue when bruised. There are 2–3 pores per mm, and the tubes underneath are up to 1 cm deep and turn olive as the mushroom matures.
Stem

The stem is 1.97 to 7.09 inches (5 to 18 cm) long and 0.59 to 1.57 inches (1.5 to 4 cm) thick. It's thicker at the base and may have shallow wrinkles running down its length. It's usually pale yellowish to pale brownish near the top and brown to reddish-brown below. The base has white mycelium.
Flesh

The flesh is mostly white, but sometimes it's pale yellow just above the tubes. When sliced, it doesn't change color much or may slowly turn bluish-pink under the cap cuticle.
Odor and Taste

The mushroom doesn't have a distinctive smell, and its taste is slightly soapy.
Spore Print

Olivaceous-brown.
Habitat

This mycorrhizal mushroom commonly found near certain types of trees like pines and eastern hemlock, and sometimes beech and birch in Europe. It grows alone or in small groups, often near mossy tree stumps during the summer and fall. You can find it in northeastern North America, the upper Midwest, the Appalachians, Mexico, and Europe.
Microscopic Characteristics

Spores measure 11–15 x 4–6 µm (sometimes longer when 2-spored basidia are present). They have a boletoid-fusiform shape, appear smooth, and turn ochraceous when treated with KOH. Basidia are either 2- or 4-sterigmate. Hymenial cystidia measure 40–50 x 7–10 µm, displaying a lageniform to mucronate shape. They are smooth, thin-walled, and become hyaline in KOH. The pileipellis forms a collapsing and sometimes gelatinizing trichoderm, with its elements measuring 5–7.5 µm in width. These elements are smooth and appear hyaline to ochraceous or golden in KOH, with terminal cells being cylindric and possessing rounded apices.

Look-Alikes

Tylopilus felleus

Has a very nasty taste.
Boletus reticulatus

It has a net-like pattern on the stem, and none of them have pores or flesh that bruises blue.
Boletus edulis

It can occasionally have a bay brown cap. However, it can be distinguished from Imleria badia by the net-like pattern on its pale stem.

History

The bay bolete mushroom has a bit of a history when it comes to its name. It was first called Boletus castaneus ß badius, which means it was thought to be a subspecies of another mushroom called Boletus castaneus. That was back in 1818 by a mushroom expert named Elias Magnus Fries. But later, in 1828, Fries changed his mind and called it a variety of Boletus castaneus. Then, in 1832, he decided it should be its very own species.

Over time, different mushroom experts had different ideas about where it belonged in the mushroom family tree. They called it Rostkovites, Viscipellis, Ixocomus, and even Suillus at different points. In 1931, Edouard-Jean Gilbert put it in a group called Xerocomus, which is where some sources still place it today.

But here's where it gets interesting. In 2014, a mushroom expert named Alfredo Vizzini decided that the bay bolete deserved its very own category, so it got a new name.

Genetic research from 2013 showed that the bay bolete is related to other mushrooms like B. pallidus and B. glabellus, and they all make up a little group called the badius clade. This group is part of a bigger group called anaxoboletus in the suborder Boletineae. There are other groups too, like the Tylopilus, porcini, and Strobilomyces clades, as well as a group with mushrooms from various genera, including Xerocomus and Xerocomellus.