Boletus is a Roman word, adapted from the Greek bolus, meaning lump. By ‘boletus’, the Latin authors evidently meant Amanita caesarea, ‘Caesar’s mushroom’, but the name has since been transferred to another group of fungi, the boletes, equally good to eat but having pores instead of gills. It suits them: ‘lumpy’ is indeed a good word to describe the ‘average’ bolete, for it is a homely ‘chubby’ fungus, a cap like a penny bun topping a squat, ‘obese’ stem, like two lumps of plasticine.
