Boletellus ananas, commonly known as the pineapple bolete, is a mushroom in the family Boletaceae, and the type species of the genus Boletellus. It is distributed in southeastern North America, northeastern South America, Asia, and New Zealand, where it grows scattered or in groups on the ground, often at the base of oak and pine trees. The fruit body is characterized by the reddish-pink (or pinkish-tan to yellowish if an older specimen) scales on the cap that are often found hanging from the edge. The pore surface on the underside of the cap is made of irregular or angular pores up to 2 mm wide that bruise a blue color. It is yellow when young but ages to a deep olive-brown color. Microscopically, B. ananas is distinguished by large spores with cross striae on the ridges and spirally encrusted hyphae in the marginal appendiculae and flesh of the stem. Previously known as Boletus ananas and Boletus coccinea (among other synonyms), the species was given its current name by William Alphonso Murrill in 1909. Two varieties of Boletellus ananas have been described. Although the mushroom may be considered edible, it is not recommended for consumption. Taxonomy The species was first named by Moses Ashley Curtis as Boletus ananas in 1848, based on specimens he found near the Santee River, in South Carolina. In 1909, William Murrill described the new genus Boletellus and made Boletellus ananas the type species. According to Murrill, the taxon Boletus isabellinus, described by Charles Horton Peck in 1897 from specimens collected in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, is a synonym of B. ananas; Peck described this species from undeveloped specimens. Wally Snell later doubted Murrill's conclusion in a 1933 publication; he considered the differences in the spore structure too great to consider the species conspecific with B. ananas, although he admitted it was impossible to come to any definitive conclusions until mature fruit bodies and spore prints were available for study. Rolf Singer and colleagues (1992) suggested the name Boletellus coccineus for Boletellus ananas. Singer created this name, however, in the mistaken belief that the earliest available name for the taxon was Boletus coccineus, proposed by Elias Magnus Fries in 1838. However, Fries's name is an illegitimate later homonym (compare with Boletus coccineus, named by Bulliard in 1791), and Singer's combination is actually based on Strobilomyces coccineus, named by Pier Andrea Saccardo in 1888. The earliest available name for