Conservation Status: Not of concern
Edibility: The taste is mild, but it is not widely sought-after as an edible.
The taste is mild, but it is not widely sought-after as an edible.
Boletus smithii is medium-sized with a velvety to fibrillose, dry cap that often becomes cracked in age. While the cap often has gray brown, buff and tan colors, especially at first, they become infused with pinkish to reddish overtones, and some caps are very reddish in age. The tubes and pores are yellow to olive yellow but near the cap margin may be pinkish or reddish, and they stain blue where bruised. The stipe is smooth, granulose, or fibrillose to tomentose, but not reticulate; it is reddish at the apex and yellowish to pale below. The flesh is yellowish or slightly reddish beneath the cap surface, and typically turns blue when exposed, but sometimes only slightly so.
Sources: Trudell, Steve and Joe Ammirati. Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest. Portland, Timber Press, Inc. 2009.
PNW Herbaria: Specimen records of Boletus smithii in the Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria database
CalPhotos: Boletus smithii photos