''Austroboletus mutabilis'' is a species of

bolete {{refimprove, date=July 2020 A bolete is a type of mushroom, or fungal fruiting body. It can be identified thanks to a unique mushroom cap. The cap is clearly different from the stem. On the underside of the cap there is usually a spongy su ...

fungus A fungus (plural, : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of Eukaryote, eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and Mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified ...

found in

northern Australia The unofficial geographic term Northern Australia includes those parts of Queensland and Western Australia north of latitude 26° and all of the Northern Territory. Those local government areas of Western Australia and Queensland that lie p ...

. Described as new to science in 2006, it grows in dry

sclerophyll Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaves, short internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is parallel or oblique to direct ...

woodlands. This bolete is characterised by its colour change—from deep red to orange and, finally, to yellow—that occurs in the cap. Almost no other Bolete goes through such a dramatic colour change as this species and this change may occur as a consequence of time, exposure to sunlight and/or local humidity. Microscopically, the suprahilar plage on spores of A. mutabilis is conspicuous and appears to lack the obvious ornamentation present on the rest of the spore. While the plage appears smooth under the light microscope, scanning electron micrography shows a large, irregular pit or erosion of that region which seems to develop with maturation. Austroboletus mutabilis was identified as a new species of ''Austroboletus'' by

Roy Halling Roy Edward Halling (born December 31, 1950, in Perry, Iowa) is an American mycologist. Halling specializes in the study of mushroom-forming fungi, especially the taxonomy, ecology, and systematics of the Boletineae, a suborder of the Boletales, and ...

, Todd Osmundson and Maria Alice Neves in a 2006 article and is known to grow at a few sites in

North Queensland North Queensland or the Northern Region is the northern part of the Australian state of Queensland that lies just south of Far North Queensland. Queensland is a massive state, larger than many countries, and its tropical northern part has been ...

, Australia. Austroboletus mutabilis by Bianca Tainsh

References

Fungi described in 2006 Fungi native to Australia mutabilis Fungus species Taxa named by Roy Halling {{Boletales-stub