The article will talk about one of the wonderful plant inhabitants of the forests. Its name speaks directly about where it likes to grow. This is a boletus, whose favorite places of growth are forests with birches.
It should be noted that these mushrooms are included in a group belonging to a single genus - Obabkovye. Their main difference from other varieties is the brownish color of the hat (different shades).
The genus Obabok combines a variety of mushroom species, including aspen mushrooms, boletus mushrooms. Despite the characteristic features of the plants of each group, their common features often confuse beginners. In this regard, it is the boletus that is often called the boletus.
This article will provide more detailed information about the white boletus: photo, description, etc.
General characteristics of boletus
Forms boletus mycorrhiza with birch, hence its name.
These mushrooms have distinctive bulbous caps that range from white to almostblack. Young mushrooms have dense beautiful hemispherical caps. But as they grow, they become looser, more cushiony.
The size reaches up to 20 cm in diameter. However, mushroom pickers often ignore such specimens, because young representatives have a richer and more delicate taste. Their legs are gray or white, covered with brownish, black or dark gray scales. The thickness of the legs is 4 cm in diameter. The young mushroom has dense, elastic pulp of white color. But some varieties at the break can change it to a pinkish hue.
Before we introduce white boletus, let's briefly describe the varieties of mushrooms in this group.
Varieties
Boletus can be divided into several varieties depending on the appearance and conditions of their growth. In total, there are about 40 of them, but not all of them can be found in Russia. The following are the most common types:
- Ordinary - the most common and most valuable in terms of tastes of culinary masters. The hat has a uniform color, the leg is thickened below.
- White - grows in damp places and does not differ in special productivity (white boletus).
- Harsh - loves soils with sands and loams near aspens and poplars. The brown cap has pubescence, the flesh turns pink on the cut, and the leg below becomes lilac.
- Marsh - fairly common in marshy wet areas. The hat has a lightershade, the stem is thinner.
- Pinking - occurs mainly in autumn in humid northern forests. The color of the cap is heterogeneous, brownish, and the flesh at the break turns pink as a result of oxidation.
- Gray (hornbeam) - has the longest collection period: from spring to autumn. The hat is brown-olive and grayish with tubercles and wrinkles, a relatively short stem, the flesh turns purple and then black when cut.
There are also black and multi-colored varieties in nature.
All these mushrooms feel great among birch trees, but they are also found in other trees. More often they grow in places that are well warmed by the sun, but with the soil moist enough.
White boletus: photo and description
Edible mushroom. His hat is whitish with various shades: light gray, cream, pinkish.
The shape of the cap of a young mushroom, like that of other boletus boletus, is hemispherical, at a more mature age it is cushion-shaped. Then it becomes more open. But unlike the common boletus, it rarely fully opens. The average diameter is 3-8 cm. The white and tender pulp of the mushroom does not have a special taste and smell.
In height, the white boletus reaches sizes up to 7-10 cm (sometimes even higher in the grass), the diameter of the leg is 0.8-1.5 cm, and it narrows closer to the cap. Its color is white, covered with scales of the same color, but with age and when they dry, they darken. The fibrous pulp of the stem of this variety of fungus, incompared with ordinary boletus, softer. Takes on a bluish tint at the base.
Useful properties
One of the most important properties of white boletus, like all mushrooms from this group, is the ability to remove toxins due to the dietary fiber contained in it. Mushrooms are useful as an aid in the treatment of the following diseases:
- diseases of the nervous system;
- change in blood sugar;
- various kidney pathologies;
- skin problems;
- inflammation of the musculoskeletal system;
- inflammation of the mucous membranes.
The pulp of the mushroom contains vitamins B and C, D, E, proteins, nicotinic acid, micro and macro elements. In addition, it is easily absorbed by the body.
Growing places
White boletus occurs from mid-summer to early October in mixed and deciduous forests, forming mycorrhiza mainly with birch. The mushroom prefers damp places and the outskirts of swamps. It is not very rare in such places, but it does not differ in high yields.
The youngest first mushrooms can be found in more open and sun-warmed places: glades, groves, edges. You can also find them under single trees.
The mushroom of this species feels good in a variety of climatic conditions. It grows even in the tundra (near birches). The main condition is the presence of the birch root system, which provides food for these fungi.
Similar speciesmushrooms
From its closely related common boletus, the white variety has an almost white cap color.
Another similar species of the same genus (Obabkovye) is the notorious white boletus. But the latter is different in that at the break it actively changes its color.
False Representative
There is, by and large, only one false mushroom, with which you can easily confuse not only the described species, but also other boletus, white mushroom and even butterdish. This is a gall fungus. It is dangerous and poisonous, but it is not difficult to identify it.
It is important to pay attention to the cut on the leg. The pulp of a poisonous false representative, oxidizing in air, changes color from crimson and pink to bluish and poisonous green.
In closing
Birch boletus with a white cap is popularly called haymakers or spikelets. This is due to the fact that they appear just at the time when haymaking begins and rye is earing in the fields.
A rather valuable mushroom in all respects can be harvested throughout the summer and even in autumn. And this pleases many lovers of forest walks.
