Harrya chromapes

Description

Harrya chromapes is a species of bolete fungus in the family Boletaceae. The fruit bodies have smooth, rose-pink caps that are initially convex before flattening out. The pores on the cap undersurface are white, aging to a pale pink as the spores mature. The thick stipe has fine pink or reddish dots (scabers), and is white to pinkish but with a bright yellow base. It is edible but are popular with insects, and so they are often infested with maggots.

This bolete is found in eastern North America, Costa Rica, and eastern Asia, where it grows on the ground, in a mycorrhizal association with deciduous and coniferous trees.

Fruit bodies can be parasitized by the molds Sepedonium ampullosporum, S. laevigatum, and S. chalcipori. In Sepedonium infections, a white to powdery yellow mold covers the surface of the fruit body. The mushrooms are a food source and rearing habitat for several insect species, including the fungus gnats Mycetophila fisherae and M. signatoides, and flies such as Pegomya winthemi and species of the genera Sciophila and Mydaea. The cottontail rabbit species Sylvilagus brasiliensis has been recorded feeding on the mushrooms in Costa Rica.

Common names: Yellowfoot Bolete, The Chrome-Footed Bolete.

Mushroom Identification

1. Ecology

   Mycorrhizal with a wide variety of hardwoods and conifers, appearing in diverse ecosystems; often growing alone, but also found growing scattered or gregariously; summer and fall (also overwinter on the Gulf Coast); widely distributed east of the Great Plains.

2. Cap

   3-11 cm; convex, becoming broadly convex or nearly plane; surface dry or tacky, finely velvety or nearly bald; occasionally somewhat pitted; when young pink to brownish pink or pale red, fading to pinkish-tan, tan or dull yellowish; without a sterile, overhanging margin.

3. Pore Surface

   Creamy white, becoming pinkish, then brownish to reddish-brown; not bruising; depressed at the stem; 1-3 round to angular pores per mm; tubes to 14 mm deep.

4. Stem

   4-17 cm long; 1-2.5 cm wide; at maturity more or less equal or tapering to apex, but with a pinched-off base; whitish to pinkish above, chrome yellow at the base (occasionally yellow overall); finely silky or finely lined near the apex; densely covered with fine scabers, except over the base; scabers usually pinkish to reddish-brown, but occasionally whitish and difficult to distinguish; basal mycelium chrome yellow.

5. Flesh

   Whitish or faintly pinkish; often pinkish beneath the skin of the cap; unchanging when sliced and exposed to air, or rarely (according to some authors) faintly bluish or yellowish in limited areas; quickly invaded in the stem by larvae; frequently brown and cavernous in the lower portion at maturity.

6. Odor and Taste

   Not distinctive.

7. Chemical Reactions

   Ammonia yellow to negative on cap surface; negative on flesh. KOH olive to brownish on cap surface; olive to brownish on flesh. Iron salts gray on cap surface; blue-green on flesh.

8. Spore Print

   Pinkish brown to cinnamon brown or purplish-brown.

9. Microscopic Features

   Spores 9-13 x 4-5 µ; smooth; subfusiform; hyaline to yellowish in KOH; inamyloid. Hymenial cystidia fusoid-ventricose to fusiform; up to 50 x 12 µ or larger; often scarcely projecting beyond the basidia; hyaline or yellowish in KOH; scattered. Pileipellis a tangled layer of repent or suberect hyphae up to 7 µ wide; the terminal elements with rounded apices, not swollen; hyaline to yellow or golden yellow in KOH. Caulocystidia scattered; in bundles with caulobasidia; variously shaped (subclavate, fusoid, cylindric, subcapitate, irregular); up to 48 x 15 µ; hyaline to yellowish in KOH.

Look-Alikes

1. Tylopilus subchromapes

   Similar species found in Australia.

2. Tylopilus balloui

   Has a more orangish cap and lacks the distinctive chrome-yellow stipe base.

3. Harrya atriceps

   Closely related rare species from Costa Rica. In contrast to its more common relative, it lacks reddish color in its stipe scabers and has a black cap, although it has a similar yellow stipe base.

History

The species was first described scientifically by American mycologist Charles Christopher Frost as Boletus chromapes. Cataloging the bolete fungi of New England, Frost published 22 new bolete species in that 1874 publication.

In 1947 Rolf Singer placed the species in Leccinum due to the scabrous dots on the stipe, even though the spore print color was not typical of that genus.

In 1968, Alexander H. Smith and Harry Delbert Thiers thought that Tylopilus was a more appropriate fit as they believed the pinkish-brown spore print—characteristic of that genus—to be of greater taxonomic significance. Other genera to which it has been shuffled in its taxonomic history include Ceriomyces by William Alphonso Murrill in 1909, and Krombholzia by Rolf Singer in 1942; Ceriomyces and Krombholzia have since been subsumed into Boletus and Leccinum, respectively. Additional synonyms include Tylopilus cartagoensis, described by Wolfe & Bougher in 1993, and a later combination based on this name, Leccinum cartagoense.

Molecular analysis of large-subunit ribosomal DNA and translation elongation factor 1α showed that the species belonged to a unique lineage in the family Boletaceae, and the genus Harrya was circumscribed to contain both it (as the type species) and the newly described H. atriceps. Javan species referred to Tylopilus pernanus are sister to the Harrya lineage.

The specific epithet chromapes is Latin for "yellow foot".

Photo sources:

Photo 1 - Author: I. G. Safonov (IGSafonov) (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Photo 2 - Author: Murmansk2020 (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Photo 3 - Author: Jimmie Veitch (jimmiev) (CC BY-SA 3.0)