Grafton was the best for new mushrooms on 7/9/05.

I found about 10 Bolete of one type.  They had a thick stem.  The largest had a 5" cap that was 1.5" thick.  The stem was 6" high and 1.5" thick, at the thickest point.  It has all the characteristics of a King except for the strange wine colored highlights.

On 7/10 I received a message from James Tunney, of the West PA Mushroom Club forum and he thinks this looks like Boletus separans aka Xanthoconium separans.  My name for it will be Wine-stain Bolete.  I checked the characteristics of this species in a guide and I tend to agree with him.  If you think it is something else, please let me know.

I noticed this and several other larger specimens were heavy in the cap where they absorbed some recent rain.  Note the brown spots and bugs on the specimen above.  Within hours the cap started to turn to mush.  In two days the mature specimens' caps liquefied.  This reminds me of people that are against collecting mushrooms in plastic bags.  They claim the mushrooms self destruct if kept in plastic bags.  It is possible that the mushrooms already started to self destruct when they absorbed the rain water, loaded with spores, into the pores of their caps.  The young specimens were not top heavy and kept quite well.

Here is a younger specimen:

Young #2

Young #3

Young #4

Young #5

More pictures here.