Any mushroom picker knows that in our forests there are many tasty and nutritious mushrooms, the “silent hunt” for which is becoming more and more popular every year. Unfortunately, this phenomenon has a downside: a lot of newcomers appear in the forest, who often collect poisonous mushrooms in their baskets.
One of these are false boletus. Their "meanness" is that in appearance they are very similar to their edible counterpart. Because of this error, sometimes even experienced mushroom pickers make mistakes.
How to distinguish?
Fortunately, nature took care of us, providing false boletus with a whole complex of distinctive features. Knowing them, you will never make a dangerous mistake, you will not bring a poisonous mushroom from the forest.
In order to more accurately remember all the important distinguishing features, it will not be superfluous to learn about the similar differences of real boletus. So, they have a characteristic red-brown hat. In addition, if you cut the leg of the mushroom with a knife, then over time the cut will noticeably turn blue.
How do false boletus "behave"?
We have already said that in the section the edible mushroom turns blue. Its poisonous counterpart does not contain any blueness. Its section turns red, sometimes acquiring the most surrealistic shades. Of course, even for a novice collector, this should cause some concern.
Leg Features
After the tests with the knife, carefully look at the leg itself. In an ordinary boletus, it is grayish-white, while in its false “colleague” a pinkish tint appears brightly in its color. However, it is unlikely that such a visual diagnosis can be considered reliable. In the end, the foot is often dirty.
Is it possible to accurately distinguish false boletus from their edible counterparts?
Once again, look at the leg of the mushroom: if it is “real”, then it will have an even, constant color, without any inclusions. The same part of the false boletus will be covered with a kind of reddish-pink mesh.
The danger of eating
If you think that if you accidentally use a boletus, the false boletus will “repay” you with serious health problems, we can reassure you: nothing bad will happen. First of all, you simply cannot eat so many of these mushrooms so that something threatens your life.
Why? Yes, just their taste is so disgusting that only a person who has completely atrophied taste buds can overcome at least a couple grams of such a dish.
Among other things, boletus (photo: false analogue) in itself in some countries is not considered an edible mushroom. So, in Norway a couple of years ago, he was recognized conditionally edible. But the false variety was once used at all, as it were, by soaking the mushrooms in salted water and boiling them.
