About this fungus
Pungent Slippery Jack is a fungus in the Suillaceae family. Its habitat and field characteristics are summarised below.
A coastal Californian pine bolete with a very sticky cap that changes from pale grey-olive to mottled rusty or yellow-brown.
What to check
Confirm pores rather than gills. Young pores are white to cream and can exude milky droplets in damp weather, then become yellow to dingy yellow-brown without blue staining. The stem develops brown glandular dots, has no ring or volva, and the young cap margin may carry a cottony white roll.
Variation
Cap colour is unusually variable, passing from dirty white or olive-grey to tawny, rusty-brown or yellow-brown. Surface slime and pore droplets are strongest in wet young specimens.
Lookalikes
Suillus granulatus and other unringed pine Suillus can be similar. Pore development, cap colour sequence, glandular dots, host pine and coastal Californian range should be assessed together; appearance alone is unreliable outside that range.
Habitat and range
Ectomycorrhizal mainly with Monterey pine and bishop pine in coastal California. It also occurs with planted Monterey pine in places such as Australia and New Zealand.
Food safety
Edible.
Use this profile to learn what to examine and compare, not as proof that a mushroom is safe to eat. Check the whole specimen and every important lookalike before reaching an identification.
Photographs
Tom (LanLord) / CC BY-SA 3.0