What grows in an October pine forest: a one-day photo diary

In an October pine forest with birch, in a single outing we found birch boletes, bay boletes, porcini, an orange-cap bolete, a bovine bolete, a xerocomus, an ugly milk cap, fly agarics and even a rare violet webcap. Birch boletes and bay boletes were the most numerous, while the porcini hid in the heather and under dry bracken. Below is the photo diary of that day: find by find, with how we identified each one.

The outing was on 6 October 2026. We won't say exactly where, and it doesn't really matter: pine forests like this can be found in many places, and it's the type of forest that tells you what to look for.

What kind of forest it is

A bright pine wood with some birch: tall pines with russet bark, the white trunks of birches between them, and underfoot a low cover of heather, grass and moss. Pine brings “its own” mushrooms — slippery jacks, bovine boletes, bay boletes — and birch brings birch boletes. For a forager, a mix like this is very rewarding.

In places the forest became completely open: straight trunks, a carpet of needles, fallen birch branches. At first glance it looks empty, but it was in exactly such places that we came across porcini and birch boletes.

And in the hollows there were damp mossy clearings with fallen wood. A green carpet of moss holds moisture for a long time, and after rain such corners are worth combing more carefully.

Birch boletes: the most frequent find of the day

The birch bolete forms mycorrhiza only with birch, so in a pine forest look for it where birches grow. It's easy to recognise: a brown or greyish-brown cap, white pores underneath and a pale stem covered in dark scales. This young one grew next to a little pine among the heather, and the scales on the stem show up perfectly.

The next birch bolete peeped out between sprigs of heather, and when we came closer, there was a fallen birch trunk behind it. A slender stem, a domed brown cap — a classic.

After that they came one after another: two side by side on pine needles, then another in fallen leaves. The pair shows well how the dark scales get denser towards the base of the stem. More about the different kinds of birch boletes in our guide to birch boletes.

Bay boletes in leaves and moss

The bay bolete is the main prize of an October pine forest. The cap is chestnut or chocolate brown, velvety in dry weather, and the pores are yellowish and quickly blue when pressed. This one grew in leaf litter, and from below you can clearly see the thick ochre-yellow stem.

The main thing we look at is the stem. In the bay bolete it has fine brown fibres and streaks, and there's no net like the porcini's. More on this difference in the article how the bay bolete differs from porcini.

We found a few more bay boletes in the moss. Young ones like to sit right in the soft cushions of haircap moss, with only the chestnut cap showing.

And this small bay bolete stood on a mossy hummock, with the whole bright pine-and-birch forest visible behind it. That's how it looks in nature: a shiny brown cap against the needles.

Porcini: look under the bracken

The porcini behaved like a true king of the forest that day: it hid. We only spotted the first one by its dark brown cap with a thin white edge, peeping out from under dry bracken in the heather.

The second grew in a grassy corner where broadleaf trees were already mixing in with the pine. A lumpy chestnut cap, a thick pale stem, and on it a fine pale net. That's one of the main features of the porcini.

And here's the biggest porcini of the day, in the hand to show its size. The stem is thick and barrel-shaped, paler towards the bottom. Turning the mushroom over, we saw whitish tubes, and a net at the top of the stem.

Whitish tubes and a pale net are an important pair. The similar bitter bolete has pinkish pores, a dark net on the stem and a bitter taste. We explained how to tell it apart in the article on the gall bolete.

An orange-cap bolete with black scales

The brightest find among the boletes was a big orange-cap bolete. Orange-ochre cap, with a thin fringe of skin hanging from the edge, as if the cap were a little too big for the mushroom. We didn't identify it to species, so we simply call it an orange-cap bolete.

The stem is thick and looks as if it's been sprinkled with ground pepper — both orange-cap boletes and birch boletes have dark scales. The cap helps tell them apart: in the orange-cap bolete it is orange or red, and the cut flesh darkens. More in the article orange-cap boletes: how to recognise them.

Bovine bolete and xerocomus: pine on sand

Where the forest became drier and sandier, mushrooms appeared that almost always live in partnership with pine. The first is the bovine bolete. Its cap is pinkish ochre, dry, with a wavy edge, as if slightly faded by the sun.

Turning the bovine bolete over, we see its key feature: large angular pores, divided again into smaller ones, like honeycomb. This is the feature that makes it easiest to recognise. More in the article bovine bolete, a modest relative of the slippery jack.

Nearby, among the heather and pine needles, grew a xerocomus. The cap is olive yellow, dry and almost felty, with no slime at all, and the stem has rusty fibres and no ring. Most likely it's the suede bolete, although from our shots it can't be reliably told from its close relative Xerocomus ferrugineus (моховик каштановий): for that you need to see the pores and the cut.

Up close you can see that the felty cap has cracked finely, and at the base of the stem there's white mycelium. Xerocomus boletes often blue when cut, and that isn't a sign of toxicity, as we wrote in the article why xerocomus boletes turn blue when cut.

In dry places like these the ground is covered with silvery tufts of Cladonia, popularly called reindeer moss. In fact it isn't a moss but a lichen, a partnership between a fungus and an alga. Cladonia loves poor, acidic sand, and it's a good sign that you're in a dry pine forest.

Ugly milk cap: a dark companion of birch

The least conspicuous find of the day. At first we took the dark olive-black cap, dusted with sand and needles, for a lump of earth. Although the mushroom sat among pine needles, its partner is birch: this milk cap forms mycorrhiza primarily with it. The cap is slimy, with a characteristic olive sheen.

From the side you can see the contrast: an almost black cap, and beneath it pale cream gills with brown spots, and a short olive-yellow stem.

Underneath, the gills are very crowded, and the cap margin is olive yellow and felty. Where the knife caught the gills, white drops of milk appeared. All milk caps exude milk when broken, though in different species it can be white, orange or watery.

In Eastern Europe the ugly milk cap is known as the black milk mushroom and in places is salted after soaking. But on our species page it is marked as inedible: its milk is acrid, and necatorin has also been found in it. In the bacterial Ames test this substance proved to be a strong mutagen, although in experiments on mice it showed no mutagenic effect. Parboiling reduces its content to about a quarter, but doesn't remove it completely. No one has proven harm to humans, but no one has proven it safe either, so we only photographed it.

Fly agarics: beautiful, but not for the basket

No October pine forest is complete without the fly agaric. Its red cap with white flakes can be seen from afar, and against the bright forest it looks like a postcard.

In a mature fly agaric the cap is spread flat, and on the stem there's a clearly visible skirt-like ring, an important feature of amanitas. The gills are white, and at the bottom of the stem there's a bulb with remnants of the volva. The fly agaric is poisonous, so we admire it only in photos. We covered its relatives, from deadly to edible, in the overview Amanitas of Ukraine.

Violet webcap: photographed and left behind

The most unexpected encounter of the day was the violet webcap. It grew in moss on rotting wood among fallen leaves, violet all over: a cap of tiny scales like rough velvet, and a thick stem. This species is rare: in Poland it is on the red list, and in Slovakia it is protected by law. It is not in the Red Book of Ukraine, but we treat it as if it were anyway: a photo, and on our way. Besides, field guides assess its edibility differently, and webcaps are hard to identify to species, so it doesn't go in the basket.

What a pine forest like this gives in October

The day's summary is simple. A bright pine wood with birch in October means, above all, birch boletes and bay boletes, and with luck porcini hiding in the heather and under bracken. On dry sandy patches with Cladonia you'll add bovine boletes and xerocomus boletes, and there are always fly agarics nearby. Those we photograph but don't take.

A few tips this outing confirmed for us:

• look for birches in a pine wood — there'll be birch boletes near them;
• look under bracken and in heather, porcini camouflage themselves well there;
• turn the mushroom over: a net, angular pores or milk will tell you more than the cap colour;
• leave rare species in the forest, and don't take ones you don't know.

Wild mushrooms that go into the basket must always be cooked: Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment advises cooking every mushroom dish for at least 15 minutes, and to neutralise any possible Echinococcus eggs the mushroom should be heated to 60–80 °C for at least 5 minutes. Guidelines for different species are in the cheat sheet how long to boil mushrooms.

More about the October season in the article which mushrooms to pick in October, and about what grows in pine forests all year round in the piece what mushrooms grow in a pine forest.