Although the first specimen was originally collected in New England in 1856 by Charles James Sprague, a formal scientific description was not published until 1872 when Miles Joseph Berkeley and Moses Ashley Curtis called it "Boletus spraguei".
Although the first specimen was originally collected in New England in 1856 by Charles James Sprague, a formal scientific description was not published until 1873 when American mycologist Charles Horton Peck named the species "Boletus pictus". In another publication the previous year, Miles Joseph Berkeley and Moses Ashley Curtis called it "Boletus spraguei".