Suillus bovinus

Suillus bovinus

Suillus bovinus, also known as the Jersey cow mushroom or bovine bolete, is a pored mushroom of the genus Suillus in the family Suillaceae. A common fungus native to Europe and Asia, it has been introduced to North America and Australia. The mushroom has a convex grey-yellow or ochre cap reaching up to 10 cm in diameter, which flattens with age.

About Suillus bovinus in brief

Summary Suillus bovinusSuillus bovinus, also known as the Jersey cow mushroom or bovine bolete, is a pored mushroom of the genus Suillus in the family Suillaceae. A common fungus native to Europe and Asia, it has been introduced to North America and Australia. The mushroom has a convex grey-yellow or ochre cap reaching up to 10 cm in diameter, which flattens with age. It is an edible mushroom, though not highly regarded. The fungus grows in coniferous forests in its native range, and pine plantations in countries where it has become naturalised. It forms symbiotic ectomycorrhizal associations with living trees by enveloping the tree’s underground roots with sheaths of fungal tissue. Suillus is an ancient term for fungi, and is derived from the word “swine”; the specific epithet comes from the Latin word bos, meaning “cattle” The mushroom’s colour is similar to that of a Jersey cow, and it has tubes extending downward from the underside of the cap, rather than gills. The spores escape at maturity through the tube openings, or pores.

The pore surface is yellow. The stipe, more slender than those of other Suillus boletes, lacks a ring. It has a dark green-blue or greenish-blue colour, which turns dark-blue upon injury or injury upon light-blue-blue staining. It grows in pine plantations, especially in South Africa, where it is more closely related to Gomphidius roseus, which was later transferred to Suillus by Rolf Singer in 1961. A 2001 study found it was not closely related. to other European species, and that all populations tested were closer to each other than any other and hence it was a cohesive species. It was one of the many species first described in 1753 by the \”father of taxonomy\” Carl Linnaeus, who, in the second volume of his Species Plantarum, gave it the name Boletus Bovinus. In works published before 1987, the species was written fully as Suillus Kuntze, as the description byLinnaeus had been name sanctioned in 1821 by the father of mycology Elias Magnus Fries.