Wednesday 15th October
Working in the woods today fashioning some stakes from cut birch regen and a hand axe, I was fortunate to find a scarletina bolete. Not one I see too often, and from above can resemble a deceiving or lurid bolete, but the striking red pores on the underside and red dotting on the stipe proved otherwise today. As is often the case, this one was found underneath a host of beech trees. One of around 80 bolete species in the UK, one way of observing a key identifying feature of the scarletina is to cut the bright yellow flesh which will then turn bright blue in seconds due to rapid oxidisation. The magic of mushrooms.
