Red cracking bolete or Bitter bolete

The cap of the bitter bolete reaches 4 to 15 centimeters across, and in especially good years you'll find real giants up to 20 centimeters. When young it is neatly hemispherical, opening with maturity to convex and later almost flat and spread out. The cap surface is dry, delicately velvety or finely felty to the touch in young mushrooms, but becomes smooth with age. The color palette ranges from light hazel and coffee brown to a warm ochre-brown, which especially heightens the deceptive resemblance to porcini.

Cap 3-10 cm across, hemispherical in young mushrooms, later becoming convex to flat. Color chestnut-brown to olive-brown, darker when young. The surface is velvety; in old mushrooms it typically cracks into polygons with a distinct pinkish-red layer in the cracks — this is the most reliable diagnostic feature of the species. In damp weather it's slightly sticky.

Under the cap lies a tubular hymenophore, which is the main giveaway of this impostor. In very young mushrooms the tubes and pores are whitish, which, once again, recalls porcini, but very quickly they take on a characteristic dirty pink or flesh-pink hue. It's this pinkness that firmly sets the bitter bolete apart from true porcini, whose hymenophore can be white, yellow or olive, but never pink. When pressed or damaged, the pores often turn brown, developing rusty brown spots.

The hymenophore is made of tubes attached to the stem. Color yellow when young, turning yellow-olive with age. The pores are small and stain strongly blue when pressed. Spore print olive-brown.

The stem of the bitter bolete is massive and sturdy, 4 to 10 centimeters tall and up to 3 centimeters thick. It is swollen and club-shaped, especially thickened at the base, which makes the mushroom look stocky and dependable. The stem is colored in ochre-brown tones, lighter at the top and darker toward the base. The most important diagnostic detail is the net pattern: unlike porcini's delicate pale netting, the bitter bolete's net is distinct, coarse and dark, chocolate-colored or even blackish, and clearly visible to the naked eye. There is no ring and no volva at all.

Stem 5-8 cm tall, 0.8-1.5 cm thick, cylindrical, often thickened toward the base. Color yellow at the top, with a characteristic lengthwise pinkish-red band or zone in the lower half. When cut, it turns blue.

The flesh of the bitter bolete is thick, dense and fleshy, white or slightly cream-colored. When cut it mostly stays unchanged, although in some specimens it may turn faintly pink on exposure to air. There's none of the bluing typical of many boletes. But the flesh's main feature lies not in its color but in its taste: it is extraordinarily, unbearably bitter, like bile or quinine. It's this bitterness, which cooking doesn't destroy, that makes the mushroom unfit for the table.

The flesh is yellow in the cap, soft and watery, and in the lower part of the stem has a pinkish-red zone. When cut, it turns blue (within 30-60 sec). The smell is faintly mushroomy.

The smell of the bitter bolete is faint and fairly nondescript, typically mushroomy, with no sharp or unpleasant notes. Unlike the taste, the aroma carries no warning at all and may well seem pleasant. That's exactly why you shouldn't rely on your nose to identify this species — the deceptively mild smell only adds to its overall resemblance to the noble porcini.

Faint, pleasant and mushroomy, with no distinct notes.