Foxy Bolete

The fruit bodies (basidiocarps) have a cap (pileus) measuring 30–90 mm in diameter. The cap is convex at first, later broadly convex, with a dry surface covered in fine, woolly fibrils that are darkest at the centre. Its colour is a muted fox‑red with a cocoa‑brown tint, maturing to a deeper burnt sienna; bruising may produce a purplish‑sienna hue. On the cap underside, the pore surface beneath is pale cream, with small, round pores that may faintly bruise lilac. The tubes are 3–11 mm long and are adnate (broadly attached) to scarcely free from the stipe. The stipe is 85–135 mm long and 13–22 mm wide (up to 28 mm at the base), stout and stuffed. It is pallid overall, slightly swollen towards the base, and bears fine scales that change from whitish to reddish‑brown and finally to dark brown or chocolate. The stipe base often bruises blue‑green. Flesh throughout is white and may remain unchanging in the cap; when it does stain, changes are very slow—first to a pale pink or wine tint in the stipe apex, then to a blue‑green in the cortex at the base, and ultimately to a patchy steel‑blue. …

Leccinum vulpinum is mycorrhizal with Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). It was originally recorded from dry, upland pine woods in Inverness-shire, Scotland. Specimens were found among bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) beneath mature pines in the Rothiemurchus area and Cairngorms National Park, with known collections dating from 1957 to 1960. An edible species, it grows in mycorrhizal association with species of pine and bearberry. The fungus is known to have a broader European distribution and has been recorded from several additional countries, including Poland, Portugal, Macedonia, and Montenegro.