_Boletus felleus--B. alveolatus_
[Sidenote: =Maligned species=]
[Sidenote: =A daring pioneer mycophagist=]
In Plate 24 are shown two examples of the Boleti which have commonly
been accounted poisonous--_B. felleus_ and _B. alveolatus_--and, in
the absence of absolutely satisfactory assurance to the contrary,
it is safer from our present point of view to consider them still
as suspicious and to give them a wide berth. There can be no doubt
but that the popular condemnation of the Boleti has been altogether
too sweeping. The gradual accession of many questionable species
to the edible list of Messrs. McIlvaine and Palmer and other
daring mycophagists is a sufficient attestation of this fact. Thus
_subtomentosus_ and _cyanescens_, already described, always heretofore
branded as reprobates, are now redeemed from obloquy, and even the
universal ill-repute of the _B. satanas_, with its pale pileus and
blood-red pores, has not frightened the indefatigable Captain
McIlvaine from a personal challenge and encounter with this lurid
specimen, with the result that the formidable "Satanas" has proved
anything but deserving of its name--not half so lurid as it has been
painted; indeed, it has been even pronounced "the best of them all."
Of course there's no telling to what extent the considerations of
contrast, through surprise and the consequent demoralization on the
contingents of the personal equation, may have influenced the captain's
discrimination, but it certainly would appear, to put it negatively,
that even the ill-favored world-renowned _B. satanas_ has apparently
been freed from aspersion as an enemy of mankind.
But it is well for the amateur to avoid these notorious species
absolutely until their edibility becomes universally accepted by the
"professionals."
[Sidenote: =The bitter Boletus=]
The _Boletus felleus_ (Plate 24, fig. 1) is a very common species.
The pinkish substance of this Boletus is so extremely bitter when raw
as to make it sufficiently repellent as food. The color of its smooth
cap varies from creamy yellow to reddish brown. Substance white in
young specimens, flesh color or pinkish in older individuals. Tube
surface white at first, becoming pinkish. Opening of tubes, angled.
Stem usually more or less netted with raised lines towards cap. Spores
pinkish or "flesh colored." Common in rich soil in woods.
[Illustration: _Boletus alveolatus Boletus felleus_]
_PLATE XXIV_