Slippery Jill
Suillus salmonicolor
Also called salmon-coloured suillus, ringed slippery jack
A glutinous orange-yellow pine bolete with salmon-tinted pores and a thick, baggy, gelatinous ring that stains brown. Everything about it tends to be sticky.
Overview
Slippery Jill is the salmon-toned counterpart to the better-known Slippery Jack, and among the most heavily glutinous of all boletes. Cap, ring and often the lower stalk are all coated in slime, so specimens collect needles and litter and are messy to handle even in dry weather.
It has appeared in the literature under several names, including Suillus subluteus and Suillus pinorigidus, reflecting long-standing confusion within a group of ringed, yellow-capped pine associates. The most reliable characters are the salmon to orange tint of the young pore surface and the unusually thick, sheath-like ring, which is gelatinous rather than membranous and quickly becomes brown-stained.
The species is widespread in North American pine country and has travelled with planted pines into other regions, where it is often one of the first Suillus species to appear in young stands.
How to identify it
Cap
3-10 cm across, convex then broadly flattened, coloured ochre-yellow, orange-brown or dull tawny, sometimes with darker streaks. The surface is thickly glutinous in all weather, drying only to a varnished shine. The margin is even and may retain slimy veil traces.
Pores
A key character: pale salmon, orange-yellow or apricot when young, gradually dulling to ochre-brown. Pores are medium to large and angular, adnate to slightly decurrent.
Stipe
4-10 cm tall and 0.8-2 cm thick, bearing a conspicuous thick, soft, baggy ring made of gelatinous veil tissue. The ring is whitish to yellowish at first and soon stained brown or vinaceous. Above the ring the stalk is yellow and dotted with brown glandular granules; below it is often slimy, streaked and duller.
Flesh & spore print
The flesh is pale yellow, frequently with a salmon or pinkish tint, and may flush reddish-brown in the stalk base when cut. The spore print is cinnamon to dull brown.
Where and when it grows
Mycorrhizal with pines, including both two-needle hard pines such as red and pitch pine and, in parts of its range, eastern white pine. It grows on sandy or gravelly soils in open pine woods, plantations and along woodland tracks, singly or in scattered groups.
Fruiting occurs from summer into late autumn, following warm rain. It is widely distributed across North America, particularly in the east and mid-continent, and has been introduced with planted pines to other parts of the world.
Ecological role
The species is ectomycorrhizal, forming a mantle over pine root tips and an extensive network of emanating hyphae that scavenge nutrients from litter and mineral soil. As with other slippery jacks it tolerates disturbed and impoverished ground, which makes it a frequent early coloniser of plantations and roadside pine.
The thick gelatinous veil that produces the ring is thought to protect the developing tube layer from desiccation and from small invertebrates while the cap is expanding. Once shed, the copious slime keeps the fruiting body moist during dry spells, allowing spore release to continue longer than in dry-capped boletes.
Similar species
Suillus luteus has a similar prominent ring, but the ring is membranous with a purple-brown underside and the pore surface is pale lemon rather than salmon; its cap is darker chocolate-brown. Suillus granulatus lacks any ring at all and has small round lemon pores.
Suillus acidus is a paler, whitish to straw-coloured relative with a thinner ring, and Suillus subalutaceus is duller and paler throughout. Where several ringed species overlap, the salmon-tinted young tubes and unusually thick, slimy ring are the most useful features for Slippery Jill.