A striking eastern North American bolete with a small, sticky, bright golden-yellow to reddish cap on a long, coarsely ridged and netted stem. It is mycorrhizal with oaks in mixed pine-oak woods and is most common in the southern Appalachians. It has been moved among several genera; DNA data now place it in Aureoboletus.
Eastern North America from Michigan and Pennsylvania south to the southeastern United States and Mexico; most common in the southern Appalachian Mountains.
Characteristics
Cap: 2-5 cm, convex, sticky and bald; bright golden yellow to brownish yellow, or reddish to orange-yellow. Pores: bright yellow becoming greenish yellow, not bruising; angular, 1-2 per mm; tubes up to 1.5 cm deep. Stem: 10-15 cm long, 1-2 cm thick, deeply lacerated-ridged or reticulate; yellow near the apex, yellowish to whitish below with yellow to reddish ridges; base often curved and rooting with white mycelium. Flesh: yellow in the cap, pinkish under the cuticle, whitish in the stem. Spore print: olive. Spores: 16-24 x 7-12 µm, ellipsoid, finely punctate.
