Cep (bronze form)

Description

This is the bronze form of the cep (Boletus edulis f. aereus). In 1966 the mycologist B. P. Vassilkov described eighteen forms of the cep, separated by their mycorrhizal partner, season and climate; on that view the cep is a species in the broad sense (Boletus edulis sensu lato), and four of these forms are treated by other authors as species in their own right. It is now recognised as a species of its own, Boletus aereus, commonly known as the queen bolete, dark cep or bronze bolete, and was described in 1789 by the French mycologist Pierre Bulliard. The fruit body has a large dark brown cap up to 30 cm across and a squat brown stipe partly covered with a raised network pattern. It grows mainly among broad-leaved trees — oak, hornbeam and beech — in warm situations, and is a prized edible mushroom.