Bronze bolete (Boletus aereus): where and when it grows
The bolete of the holm oak woods: dark, stout and firm-fleshed. The most prized of its family.
The bronze bolete (Boletus aereus) comes out from August to November, at its best in October, and sometimes also in summer, in woods of holm oak, cork oak, Pyrenean oak, sweet chestnut, sessile oak, pedunculate oak, downy oak, Portuguese oak and beech, from low ground up to the middle mountains. It is also known as dark cep, queen bolete.
See where it is ready this week
Right now, the best day forecast for bronze boletes is 11 September.
The bronze bolete is the southern cousin of the porcini. Where that one wants cool pine woods, this one looks for holm oak, cork oak and chestnut woods on acid soil and in a warm climate, from the west to the south of the peninsula. It comes up earlier, with the late-summer rains, and is the most appreciated in the kitchen.
Like Caesar's mushroom, it is a warm-soil mushroom: a rainy September with the ground still mild is its moment. An early cold takes it away.
What it needs to come out
First, a generous rain, the kind that soaks down to the roots. Then patience: it usually appears after two or three weeks, as long as the soil holds on to that moisture and stays warm, with the summer heat still in it. If a frost, too much water or a drying wind comes in between, the flush is aborted and never shows.
Where to look
It comes out in woods of holm oak, cork oak, Pyrenean oak, sweet chestnut, sessile oak, pedunculate oak, downy oak, Portuguese oak and beech, from low ground up to the middle mountains, always on acid soils.
Bronze boletes by province (in Spanish)
- Bronze boletes in Barcelona · 235 zones with habitat
- Bronze boletes in Burgos · 327 zones with habitat
- Bronze boletes in Girona · 190 zones with habitat
- Bronze boletes in Huesca · 220 zones with habitat
- Bronze boletes in La Rioja · 109 zones with habitat
- Bronze boletes in León · 507 zones with habitat
- Bronze boletes in Lleida · 183 zones with habitat
- Bronze boletes in Lugo · 426 zones with habitat
- Bronze boletes in Navarra · 258 zones with habitat
- Bronze boletes in Ourense · 256 zones with habitat
- Bronze boletes in Segovia · 91 zones with habitat
- Bronze boletes in Soria · 172 zones with habitat
- Bronze boletes in Teruel · 198 zones with habitat
How the forest is doing this week
- Asleep 3159 zones
- Low 13 zones
Forecast of 11 September, updated every day.
Mushrooms that share its woods
- Gurumelo: The mushroom of the south-western spring. It breaks out of the ground like a white stone and smells of wet earth.
- Caesar's mushroom: The queen. Orange as a golden egg, scarce and ever more sought after.
- Chanterelle: Yellow, fragrant and loyal: once it finds its corner, it comes back every year.
- Black trumpet: Black, invisible in the leaf litter and delicious. Those who can see it would not swap it for anything.