Mushroom Trivia
Trivia
HomeTop Ten
Top Ten

bolete, Polypore, pore, tube

(pl. boletes, Polypores, pores, tubes)

Terms discussed: dissepiment (pl. dissepiments), porcini, pore wall (pl. pore walls), poroid, Röhrling (pl. Röhrlinge)



Instead of having gills on the underside of their cap, some mushrooms have a layer of tubes. Mushrooms with a pore layer as their fertile surface are said to be poroid.


Image of Boletaceae from A. M. Hussey (1847 - 1855) Illustrations of British mycology
Boletaceae
Some of these mushrooms are known as boletes. Boletes are shaped like "normal" mushrooms, with a cap and central stem, and grow on the ground. Their texture, too, is more or less that of "normal" mushrooms. Their pore layer in particular is quite soft, and they rot easily.

Back to top

Some of the best edible mushrooms are boletes, including the famous porcini, but other boletes can cause severe gastrointestinal distress.


Image of Phellinus pini from Jean Louis Émile Boudier (1904 - 1909) Icones mycologicae ou iconographie des champignons de France, principalement Discomycètes
Phellinus pini
The other large group of poroid mushrooms is the polypores. They mostly grow on wood, don't always have a stalk, and are often very tough and leathery, or hard and woody. They do not rot readily, often remaining undecayed to the point that algae or moss start growing on them.

Back to top

Very few polypores are edible, but many of them have been used throughout history as medicine, tinder, and for ritual purposes. The famous "Ice Man" that was retrieved from a glacier a few years ago was carrying two species of polypore with him, but no other mushrooms.

Back to top

For no particular reason, the poroid layer of boletes is said to be made up of tubes, while that of polypores is said to be made up of pores. The only place this distinction is observed carefully is in the literature, but it shows up occasionally in other places. For example, the german word for bolete is Röhrling, which translates something like "tubie".

Back to top


Image of Boletaceae from A. M. Hussey (1847 - 1855) Illustrations of British mycology
Boletaceae
Another terminological distinction is that the pore walls of polypores are technically known as dissepiments. This is a more meaningful distinction, as there is actually an anatomical difference between the pore walls of boletes and polypores. A bolete's spore-bearing layer of tissue is continuous over the entire underside of the cap, so if the tube mouths are a different color than the rest of the pore, it's because of cheilocystidia (as when gilled mushrooms have gill edges that are differently colored from the rest of the gill)

Back to top


Image of Phellinus from Jean Louis Émile Boudier (1904 - 1909) Icones mycologicae ou iconographie des champignons de France, principalement Discomycètes
Phellinus
In polypores, however, each pore has its own hymenium, which is separate from that in all the other pores. What you see as the pore mouth in a polypore is the inner trama of the pore wall projecting out past the hymenium. This pore wall is the dissepiment.

Back to top

 

 


Glossary
Glossary
Mushrooms
Mushrooms
HomeMycoPeople
People
Newsletter
Newsletter
Events
Events