Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Members of the order Boletales (commonly referred to as Boletes) are mushrooms characterized by holding their spores in small pores on the underside of the mushroom, instead of gills (as are found in agarics). Nearly as widely distributed as agarics, they include the king bolete, much sought after by mushroom hunters. Similar to boletes, and generally only distinguished technically, are polypores. Boletes are a --relatively-- safe group of mushrooms for human consumption (none are known to be deadly to adults), provided that you: Eat only young specimens Avoid mushrooms with red or orange pore surfaces Those that stain or bruise blue to green (a common trait, yes) Avoid all Leccinium species with an orange cap Note that to be safe, a positive identification should always still be made before consumption! Additionally, just because something is edible doesn't mean that it should be eaten, or will taste good at all. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.