page_title: Hemileccinum impolitum
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Hemileccinum impolitum / Description
caption_attribution_description: Boletus impolitus Fr., 1838 English: Iodine bolete Русский: Полубелый гриб, боровик жёлтый Polski: Borowik płowy Suomi: Kalvastatti Українська: Боровик жовтий Latina: Boletus impolitus
context_page_description: Hemileccinum impolitum is a basidiomycete fungus of the family Boletaceae, native to Europe. It is commonly referred to as the iodine bolete, because its fruit bodies tend to emit an iodine odour when cut, more detectable in the stem base or overripe specimens.
  Like other members of the family, H. impolitum has tubes and pores instead of gills in the hymenial surface of its fruit bodies. It is widely distributed in temperate and southern Europe, where it grows in mycorrhizal symbiosis with broad-leaved trees, particularly oak.
context_section_description: The cap diameter usually ranges between 5 and 12 cm (2 and 4.5 in), but can reach 20 cm (8 in). It is at first hemispherical, gradually becoming convex as the fungus expands and finally flat in fully mature specimens, sometimes with a slightly uplifted margin. The colour ranges from light tan, pale brown, chestnut-brown, grey, ochraceous-brown, greyish-brown or olivaceous-brown and the cap of young fruit bodies is initially covered in a velvety, finely filamentous silvery-grey coating that disappears in age.
  The cap cuticle turns violet with NH₃ (ammonia).
  The stem is cylindrical, clavate or ventricose, 5 to 15 cm (2 to 6 in) high by 2 to 6 cm (1 to 2.5 in) wide, cream to pale yellow, but typically lemon-yellow at the apex and usually narrowing at the base. It has no reticulation (net), but is covered in tiny pustules (scabrosities) below the apex, sometimes browning with age.
  The tubes are pale yellow to lemon-yellow and usually do not discolour when cut, but may rarely stain faintly greenish-brown. The pores are small and rounded, lemon-yellow to chrome-yellow, not discolouring or rarely staining greenish-brown where handled or injured. The flesh is thick, soft, pale yellow to whitish, usually remaining the same colour when cut, or rarely becoming faintly pinkish-brown above the tubes and at the stem base. It has a sour smell somewhat reminiscent of iodine, more pronounced at the stem base.
  The spore print is olivaceous-brown.
  The spores are fusiform (spindle-shaped) or fusiform-ellipsoid, measuring 10–16 × 4–6 μm. Although under an optical microscope they appear perfectly smooth, when viewed with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) fine warts and tiny “pin-pricks” are visible on their surface. The cap cuticle is a trichodermium, composed of cylindrical smooth hyphae with clavate terminal cells that later collapse in mature specimens.
caption: Iodine Bolete found in Ukraine
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