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    Home » Types of Edible Wild Mushrooms

    Scaber Stalk or Leccinum Mushrooms

    Published: Mar 5, 2013 Modified: Jan 23, 2023 by Alan Bergo This post may contain affiliate links 13 Comments

    There's a lot of boletes out there to hunt, and they can be mystifying to try and identify if you're trying to make a meal out of them. Scaber Stalks, also known as Leccinums, Aspen or Birch Boletes, are one of the more easy boletes to identify. But, there's a few things you need to know if you want to cook them safely.

    scaber stalk mushroom leccinum
    A Leccinum mushroom growing with aspen and birch. This guy is a little mature, look out for bugs.

    Well, hold on, saying that they're easy to identify though is a little misleading, but, basically, It's easy to tell if a mushroom is a Leccinum, but it can be difficult to tell exactly which species of Leccinum it is.

    For the most part, with the exception of one species I'll go over, Leccinums tell you immediately what they are by the markings on their stems, also known as "scabers".

    Scabers

    The picture below is a great example of typical-looking Leccinum. Notice the scabers, or black markings on the stem, which are a dead giveaway.

    Leccinum mushroom from Nakemin, in the Boundary Waters.
    Leccinum mushroom from Nakemin, in the Boundary Waters.

    Exceptions to the scaber rule 

    Of course, mushrooms don't know that they're supposed to play by rules, so, of course there is an exception to the scaber ID trick. Luckily, so far these are the only one I know of, and once you've picked them a couple times, they're easy. They're name is Hemileccinum subglabripes, or what I call the yellow Leccinum, and they are the only mushroom I know of with the word Leccinum in their name that doesn't have the black markings on the stem.

    Everything else is similar though: they're heavy, weighty mushrooms, and they enjoy the same habitat as other Leccinums. They're also good eaters, and have a great resistance to bugs. See more pictures of these here.

    Hemileccinum subglabripes
    Hemileccinum subglabripes

    Habitat

    These will start to fruit in the summer where I'm from in Minnesota, just as the chanterelles start to fruit in early July. 

    As their name implies, more often than not when I see them, they're growing with aspen or birch, although I've seen species with the dark red cap growing in stands of pure Norway pine as well in Northern Minnesota. The species below I usually see in areas that include both aspen and oak.

    leccinum mushrooms birch bolete edible minnesota
    One Leccinum species Minnesota has to offer, growing with aspen. The largest in this picture was over a foot tall!

    Orange-Capped Leccinums: edible, poisonous? Or Both?

    Boletes in the Leccinum family have been used as a food for a long time, and they're especially popular in Eastern Europe, and with Immigrants in the United States from those countries. But, current field guides do not recommend orange cap-leccinum mushrooms for the table, citing a number of different poisoning cases over the years.

    However, just because a few people were poisoned, in my mind, doesn't necessitate that we toss out a group of mushrooms that are delicious to eat. Modern, alarmist claims that certain food plants and mushrooms that have been known to be eaten for a long time by different groups of humans, need to be taken into consideration, and balanced, with ethnobotanical evidence and accounts of consumption. Modern science is extremely valuable, but so are the human food traditions that often predate it by thousands of years.

    "It wasn't the mushrooms fault that I didn't cook it long enough" 

    I should know, as Leccinum is the only species of wild mushroom I've poisoned myself with. The thing was, I had been eating Leccinums cooked fresh, and I didn't cook them long enough.

    After a night full of horrible vomiting and cramps, I learned my lesson. It wasn't the mushrooms fault that I didn't cook it long enough. I dry ever Leccinum I harvest now, since, besides improving their flavor, it negates gastro-intestinal worries. Dehydrating, in my opinion has been, and always will be a first line of defense against the most common, mild toxins found in edible mushrooms.

    It might sound weird, but orange-capped Leccinum are what I would call technically poisonous, and edible at the same time, just like Morchella and Gyromitra mushrooms. It's my opinion that orange capped Leccinums, after dehydrating, are just as safe (not to mention rich and delicious) as any most other wild mushrooms you'd like to eat. To be clear: I dehydrate every Leccinum I harvest.

    Cooking

    There are definitely a couple tricks to know here. The first thing I'll mention is that I don't typically eat them fresh unless they're very small buttons. I prefer to dry them, since I think it concentrates their flavor, and also bypasses any danger of under-cooking. When eaten fresh these are good, but a bit mild.

    Separating the caps from the stem

    One thing you'll notice straight away, is that these can be heavy, dense mushrooms, well, the stem that is. As the mushrooms age, the stems stay very firm (and often bug-free), but, the caps can become flimsy, and often full of intruders.

    This means that the cap and stem will cook at different rates, so you'll need to add the stalk to the pan first, before adding the cap, if you want to do something like saute them, which I generally don't do any way.

    leccinum mushrooms edible minnesota birch bolete
    From my experience, these varieties are the ones that can cause gastric upset under-cooked. They'll dry just fine though.

    Recipes

    Here's some favorite recipes I like specifically for Leccinums, or boletes in general

    • Wild Mushroom Conserve
    • Wild Mushroom Duxelles
    • Fresh Bolete Butter
    • Fresh Bolete Julienne
    • Cream of Bolete Soup With Black Walnut Pesto
    • Shrimp With Bolete Infused Soy-Brandy Cream
    • Dried Bolete Infused Soy Sauce
    • Beef Commercial With Dried Boletes
    • Dried Bolete-Cheese Fritters

    More Mushroom Recipes

    « Chicken Fat Bolete Mushroom or Suillus Americanus
    Fiddlehead Ferns: Identifying, Harvesting and Cooking »

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. James

      July 20, 2014 at 11:09 pm

      I have recently spied these in an aspen grove I take care of. I have been researching these aspen boletes to identify them as edible. I have been cautiously eating a small part at a time. I have had them fried and dried. So far I have consumed two 1/4 " slices of the whole mushroom. No ill effects. They smell and taste so good.
      I live in the middle part of Saskatchewan. Your report was encouraging.

      Reply
      • Kd

        September 13, 2019 at 7:56 pm

        I have the birch bolete growing on my property and it is delicious. I have also eaten the bicolor bolete and it too is delicious. I love the bolete mushrooms. They are very choice. And to think, the Italians call them porcini and some consider them to be pig food. Maybe I should ask them if they will let me have their boletes.

        Reply
        • Chris

          October 24, 2019 at 3:16 pm

          Porcini means little piggy and refers to the king bolete. These patches are highly coveted. Suillus mushrooms are fed to the pigs.

          Reply
        • Srbodlak

          August 02, 2020 at 8:39 am

          Porcini means piglets, and Italians love them as theu love the real piglets.

          Reply
    2. Omar Ruiz Diaz

      September 17, 2021 at 8:02 pm

      How to dry this mushroom ? I eat it several times, in fact, today I did...

      Reply
      • Alan Bergo

        September 18, 2021 at 8:04 am

        Get a dehydrator, they work well.

        Reply
        • Ellie

          September 21, 2021 at 8:53 pm

          Alan Bergo, you're absolutely right.
          I went picking these 3 days ago. I slice them all , then dehydrate them, then, I powder some as needed, and add the powdered mushrooms while cooking soups, ground meat (to make meat loaf)or meat ball or sauces.
          How do you preserve yours?
          I use method I learned from the "old country" while growing up in Europe as a child 🙂

          Reply
        • Pimp

          August 21, 2022 at 5:20 pm

          I eat this mushroom all the time fresh if I can. They're tasty and I've never been sick. They also come in big numbers that I dehydrate alot as well. Made a homemade dehydrater out of a box some window screen a light bulb and a small fan. Works great. I'm off to pick more now. Also I think most of the poisoning is from the euro group which I suspect is a different species all together.

          Reply

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