This bolete has a convex to flat bright red cap 2-3/8 to 5/1/4 inches across, with yellow flesh that turns blue instantly when bruised, as does the entire mushroom.

Yellowish tubes attach to or descend the stem, ending in tiny orange-red pores. The spore print is dark olive-brown.

The stalk is 1-1/4 to 4 inches long, 3/8 to 3/4 inches thick, dotted above, and with reddish hairs at the base.

This very common mushroom grows under deciduous trees and conifers throughout Eastern North America from late spring to fall.

Mushroom books list this mushroom as poisonous, causing gastrointestinal distress, but after several reports that mushroom hunters in my region were eating it with no problems, I cooked some and tasted a bite. Nothing happened, I gradually increased the amount, and the only ill effect I could detect was that it tasted like liver, a food I already hated by the age of 4, years before I became a vegetarian.

I parboiled it to reduce the flavor, peeled and discarded the slimy pore surface, marinated it, tried drowning it in spices, and mashed it into a pâté, but nothing helped.