My Treatment in Numbers

Yesterday was the last session of my 35 days of radiotherapy treatment. The first day of treatment was 5th September, which I thought was just a calibration run, but last Friday I was told that was actually day one of my 35.

We drove to that first treatment and were given a list of appointments for the following week. That was the routine for the following 7 weeks. There was one day where the machine was having scheduled maintenance, and another day where the clinic rang after I had left home because the machine was broken.

So that's 34 days of 130km and 1 day of 90km making 4510km, riding in a taxi/ambulance, charged at 1€20 per kilometre. 5412€, plus about 10€ of fuel for our car. All the taxi costs are covered by the state health system.

On each voyage I drank on average 550ml of water or cordial, meaning I drank almost 20 litres en route to the hospital.

Over the course of the seven weeks I have taken 5 boxes of imodium, and 1½ mega boxes of Smecta. I also had a course of Racecadotril.

All this for about 8 minutes a day in a particle accelerator, at least 4 minutes of which was scanning me to make sure my bladder was full, my bowel empty, and I wasn't about to fart.

I now have to retrain myself to eat real food. I have no idea how long that will take.

How French Are Escargots?

Ninety-five percent of snails consumed in France come from Eastern Europe. French snail farmers  want to establish some rules so that traceability is clear.

 

Roman Snail in the wild, in the grounds of a chateau that is a Buddhist retreat.

There are 500 snail farmers in France. It's a profession that didn't exist until 40 years ago and it appeared after the legislation protecting Roman Snails Helix pomatia (Fr. Escargot de Bourgogne, or Gros Blanc) was introduced and the species could no longer be collected from the wild without restrictions. It was clear that the snails would go extinct if wild collecting continued as it had in the past.

 

Prepared large Garden Snails in garlic butter, produced by a local snail farmer.

For 45 years the rules have been that you can only collect Roman Snails between 1 July and 31 March, and only if the diameter is 3 cm or more. These constraints mean that the French market cannot be satisfied. At the time of the protection legislation consumption was already at 15 000 tonnes per year. So the profession of snail farmer (Fr. héliciculteur) was invented.

 

For the best snails go to a winter gourmet or producers market (Marché des producteurs) such as this one at la Celle Guenand. The snail producer's stall is on the left.

 

They tried at first to raise Roman Snails, the same as they were used to finding in the wild. But this was a short lived experiment. It just wasn't profitable. Roman Snails take 3-5 years to mature, so faster growing species were sought. Nowadays farmed snails are an unusually large subspecies of Garden Snail Cornu aspersum maxima that is widely believed to have been sourced from Algeria (although recent genetic tests have discounted that). Garden Snails are known in French as Petit Gris, and the farmed subspecies is known as the Gros Gris. This large Garden Snail proved to have similar characteristics to the Roman Snail, and in fact proved to be more tender and less rubbery. Crucially for commercial purposes it matures in 4 to 6 months.

 

Roman Snail in the grounds of the Domaine de Candé.

 

However, restaurateurs cannot put the more prestigious Escargot de Bourgogne on their menus if they are using Gros Gris, and many have turned to the Eastern European countries to source wild collected Roman Snails. There is no legislation in Poland, Romania, Ukraine or Bulgaria protecting the species, and they have flooded the French market. But now, populations of Roman Snails in those countries are coming under threat, just as happened in France in the 1980s. On the other hand, the French population has bounced back quite well.

 

A Garden Snail that hitched a lift on some lettuce.

 

Ukraine had become a leader in snail farming, with several hundred farms producing a thousand tonnes, entirely for export, as there is no native tradition in Ukraine of eating snails. But COVID-19 brought all that to a halt as exports had to cease. Likewise in France COVID-19 nearly wiped out snail farming, as 70% of sales are made during the winter holiday season, and due to the pandemic any celebrations, markets and restaurant dining were severely restricted in November 2020 to January 2021. 

Roman Snail in the wild.

But there is no question of going back to the old days. Roman Snails will remain protected in France and only accessible to those who collect a few in the autumn and winter for personal consumption. Meanwhile, the French National Federation of Heliciculteurs is working towards certification for 'escargot francais' for the Gros Gris, in the same way that French poultry is certified.

Further Reading: A profile of one of our local snail farmers that I wrote more than a decade ago  https://daysontheclaise.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-snail-farmer.html

Foxes and the Fight Against Lyme Disease in France

According to French zoologists who have made a study of it, the Red Fox (Fr. Renard roux) is crucial to the control of Lyme Disease in France. They note that the increase in cases of Lyme Disease coincides with the decrease in Red Fox numbers. In France they are very often viewed as pests and hunted mercilessly. Up to a million are killed by hunters every year. Since cases of Lyme Disease continue to rise, and farmers struggle with rodents ravaging their crops, it seems high time to give Reynard the respect he deserves for his significant role in the regulation of our ecosystems.

 Lyme Disease is a degenerative zoonotic disease, which can be treated if it is diagnosed in time. Unfortunately due to lack of recognition in the past, it has often been left to turn into a chronic disease in France. It is transmitted via a tick infected with the bacteria complex Borrelia burgdoferi.

 The bacteria requires a damp habitat and so is most often found in or near woodland. Using as hosts wild vertebrates such as rodents or domesticated animals, the bacteria transfers from the host to the tick when the tick requires a blood meal. The tick may then pass it on in the same fashion to humans.

That said though, just because we are bitten by an infected tick does not mean we will contract the disease. It all depends on the life stage of the tick. Fewer than 1% of people bitten by a tick will be infected, and it requires a tick nymph to have been attached for at least 17 hours. The main season of risk is April to June, and sometimes in the autumn. Numbers of cases peaked in 2018 with a couple of hundred thousand incidences, but even now with better public education, there are around 60 000 new cases every year.

The principal cause for the increase in Lyme Disease is climate change. In addition, and all the current science is in agreement about this, the other significant factor is a lack of Red Foxes in rural areas and/or domestic cats in urban settings to control the rodent carriers of the bacteria. It has been demonstrated by several studies that a reduction over time of the Red Fox population in an area correlates to an increase in cases of Lyme Disease.

The rodents most likely to be carrying the bacteria are the Bank Vole (Fr. Campagnol roussatre) and the Wood Mouse (Fr. Mulot sylvestre). Their main predators are the Red Fox and the Beech Marten (Fr. Fouine), and the numbers of rodents go down when the activities of these two predators go up. The Red Fox does not itself play a role in infecting the ticks. Rather it is the population density of the rodents which directly affects the numbers of ticks, infected or not. The fewer rodents, the fewer ticks and the more Red Foxes. When the balance between rodents and foxes is optimal, there are four times fewer infected ticks.

So why has the Red Fox been considered a pest for so long and so persistently? Like the crow, it has partly to do with how the fox is represented in fairytales and fables. The fox is a cunning and crafty character in these stories. The red colour of the fox's pelt is associated with the Devil or Evil. Despite this, it was hunted for its fur. But bit by bit it became hunted because of being a vector for diseases transmissable to humans. The best known of these diseases is rabies, which was eradicated in France by 2001.

Red Foxes in good health and free from rabies were able to defend their territories from foxes coming in from elsewhere. But the next thing you know is that they were accused of spreading alveolar echinoccosis (Fox Tapeworm). However, this disease seems to be restricted to the east of France, and globally only 15% of new cases annually are in France. There are on average 2 human deaths a year from this disease in France.

Red Foxes are a very adaptable species and can be found everywhere from the seaside to high up in the mountains. It has been estimated that they each eat about 6000 rodents a year, thus keeping disease transmission low and protecting crops and young trees from damage by rabbits and voles. Rather than poison the food chain and the environment by laying baits for rodents it makes more sense to simply let foxes do their thing.

What do Hornets Ever do for Us?

Here in the Touraine Loire Valley we co-exist with two species of hornet. Hornets, for those of you unfamiliar with the beasts, are gigantic wasps. 

 

European Hornet predating a European Wasp Vespula germanica on our back doormat.

 

One of the species in the Touraine is the Yellow-legged Asian Hornet Vespa vetulina (Fr. Frelon asiatique). They are non-native and have colonised the whole of France in under two decades. Now abundant, everyone hates them, especially beekeepers, but no successful and sustainable method of controlling them has been developed, so we all just have to live with them as best we can. I find ignoring them completely works quite well, except when they are predating the feral honey bee colony in our courtyard wall. Then their behaviour is just too fascinating to ignore.

 

European Hornet at its nest entry in a tree stump. Minutes earlier I had actually put my hand inside without realising there was a hornets' nest. The hornets did not react in any way.

 

The second species of hornet here is the European Hornet Vespa crabro (Fr. Frelon européen). Sadly, not everyone can tell them apart, and all of a sudden anything even vaguely hornety is considered fair game and something to panic about. So, once again, for those of you confused about how to tell the difference -- European Hornets are yellow and chestnut brown, and very big, as insects go; Yellow-legged Asian Hornets are mostly black, with a couple of orangey yellow bands on the abdomen, and they are quite big, but not as big as European Hornets. Yellow-legged Asian Hornets have bright yellow legs, European Hornets have chestnut brown legs. Neither of these two species should be confused with Oriental Hornets V. orientalis (only in a few places in the south of France) or Asian Giant Hornets V. mandarinia (not in Europe at all), or Median Wasps Dolichovespula media. Most picture editors working in social or mainstream media can't tell one species of hornet from another, or indeed tell a hornet from a wasp, and so there is an awful lot of nonsense and misidentification online.

 

A European Hornet being put outside. I had offered it a towel to sit on and it felt secure.

 

So why should we learn the difference and be careful to cherish our European Hornets rather than fear and kill them?

• They are part of our natural biodiversity in the Touraine, and given the biodiversity crisis we are currently in, we need to protect all our native species to ensure a stable and resilient ecology in the face of climate change and habitat destruction. 
• Specifically, they are predators, and maintaining predators is a key part of maintaining a stable ecology. Predators do not have to be creatures with fur and fangs.
  
• They are good pollinators.
• They are rarely aggressive to humans (unless they feel their nest is threatened).
• Their nests are not long lasting, so the colony will die off over winter without you intervening with traps or poison. Save your money and effort.
  
• They predate wasps (and you are much more likely to be stung by a wasp than a hornet). 
• If you expect people in other countries to live alongside wildlife such as lions, bears or elephants without harming them then you should be able to tolerate large generally inoffensive insects going about their business in your presence.
• If you remove a predator species such as hornets you will then struggle to control their prey (eg fly maggots, sawfly grubs, moth caterpillars, other grubs, various insects).
• If you poison them what else are you harming?
• They will beat up on any Yellow-legged Asian Hornet entering their territory and trying to compete for prey. 

 

European Hornet in our attic. They fly both day and night if the weather is warm, and are attracted to lights, so often come in open windows on summer nights.

 

If you are a gardener, hornets are not a menace, but an ally, keeping your garden biodiversity balanced, and pollinating your flowers. They might be fierce looking, but just let them be and they will do the same for you. 

Further reading: My blog post about Yellow-legged Asian Hornets, their lookalikes, and what to do about them  https://daysontheclaise.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-to-do-about-asian-hornets.html

My species page on European Hornet on Loire Valley Nature  https://loirenature.blogspot.com/2013/12/european-hornet-vespa-crabro.html 

All photos from our archives and taken by me.

Palets Bretons

Yet another plain old fashioned recipe that I have made several times during the course of Simon's radiotherapy. These simple shortbread like biscuits make an ideal snack if you are stuck at the hospital and can't eat much. 

 

Ingredients

2 egg yolks

100 g sugar

100 g room temperature salted butter

1 tsp vanilla paste

140 g plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

Method

1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar for 2 minutes until the mixture goes pale.
2. Add the butter and vanilla and beat for another 2 minutes.
3. Shift in the flour and baking powder and stir until it forms a dough.
4. Roll the dough into a cylinder 10 - 15 cm long. Make sure to square off the ends so you have an even diameter along the whole length.
5. Wrap the cylinder of dough and refrigerate for 3 hours.
6. Heat the oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with baking paper.
7. Cut the dough cylinder into 12 mm slices and place them on the tray, spaced out by a couple of centimetres.
8. Put the tray in the oven and drop the temperature to 150°C.
9. Bake for 18 minutes.
10. Cool on the tray.

Makes about a dozen biscuits.

These deliciously crumbly buttery biscuits are emblematic of Breton cuisine, containing the four basic ingredients that many Breton cakes are made of -- egg yolks, sugar, flour and salted butter. To be a true palet breton the recipe must contain at least 20% salted butter. Surprisingly, they are a 20th century invention, developed by an enterprising baker in Finistere in 1920. He took the traditional sablé and galette bretonne and made a thicker, more rustic looking biscuit, reminiscent of Scottish shortbread. Nowadays commercial palets bretons are protected with an IGP, so must be made in the traditional way, in Brittany, if they are to be labelled and sold as palets bretons. Or you can do as I have, and make them yourself at home. They are easy, but rely on quality ingredients, particularly the butter, to be really good.

An Update on My Treatment

Today is the end of week 6 of 7 of my treatment, leaving me just 7 days to go.

This is because I missed one day while they we doing monthly maintenance on the zapper (I assume putting more particles in it) and again on Monday, when the machine wasn't functioning. Unfortunately, they didn't let us know until I was half way to Tours, so I had a swap of taxis in Veigne and came home again.

Yesterday the taxi diverted to pick up another passenger in Loches. This happened while I was there

I have found the past 3 weeks really difficult. It's only the past couple of days where my digestive system has stabilised, and before that I was having to be tested at the hospital then sent off to do more drinking. I was beginning to think that they suspected I wasn't preparing properly, but when I showed them a list of my previous 4 days consumption they softened a lot. From my list of prohibited food I further omitted all dairy, all wheat, all veg except potatoes, and coffee.

That left me with spuds, rice, chicken, white fish, processed white ham, and cordial. For some strange reason, I'm also allowed quince jelly, so I've been having that on rice crackers for breakfast. A couple of times I have snuck in an egg white omelette, but that's about it. It was 4 days of that and 3 kinds of diarrhoea medication before I settled down.

Still - I'm almost there. Roll on my finishing day.

Grasshoppers at la Cabane

La Cabane is a Zone Naturelle d'Intérêt Ecologique, Faunistique et Floristique that I have been monitoring for some years. It is grassland with scrub, surrounding a former kaolin extraction pit which is now full of water. The site is waterlogged in the winter, hot and dry in the summer. In early September Ingrid and I visited to survey for the caterpillar food plants of a rare moth. We didn't find any of the target species but we did take the opportunity to record and photograph these grasshoppers.

Broad Green Winged Grasshopper Aiolopus strepens (Fr. Oedipode autumnal or criquet farouche):  The hind tibiae are red, the femora particularly thick, and the wing cases have a characteristic clear contrasting pattern of two pale spots. The wings are bluish at the base and have a dark spot at the tip. The species is found in the southern half of France, and Corsica, on hot dry sites.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Jersey Grasshopper Euchorthippus declivus (Fr. Criquet du brome): A species that favours long grass on dry calcareous soil. Typically they have wings that are shorter than their abdomen, but long winged individuals are sometimes seen.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Woodland Grasshopper Omocestus rufipes (Fr. Criquet noir ébène): This species is found throughout Europe and northern Asia. In France it is present in most areas, but absent from Finisterre and Paris and surrounds. The abdomen is green at the front, turning yellow in the middle and red at the tip. The legs often have some red too. This grasshopper isn't fussy and will live in a range of habitats. It can be found in hot arid grassland, rocky areas, but also damp grassland and fallow ground. Adults can be seen from June to November.

Female.

 

Male

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Walking in the Forest of Boussay

On a warm evening 19 September les Galoches walked 5 kilometres in the Forest of Boussay. We thought we might see some edible mushrooms, but none were spotted. Here is some of what we did see.

Panther Cap mushroom Amanita pantherina (Fr. Amanite panthère).

Agile Frog Rana dalmatina (Fr. Grenouille agile).

Managed oak forest.

Goldenrod Solidago virgaurea (Fr. Solidage verge d'or).

A humungeous tree stump.

European Crane Fly

The European Crane Fly Tipula paludosa (Fr. cousin or Tipule des prairies) is the best known of hundreds of crane flies in the Tipulidae family of flies. They resemble gigantic mosquitoes with enormously long legs, and indeed are often mistaken for mozzies. But they lack the mouthparts to bite and are entirely inoffensive. Their larvae, known as leatherjackets, are capable of doing considerable damage to lawns, sports fields, arable crops and seedlings.

 

A female European Crane Fly Tipula paludosa, resting on the exterior wall of our house near the back door.

The scientific name means something like 'abundant wetland spider'.

They are around 20 mm long, with exceptionally long hind legs. Their heads are weird and elongated and their grey thorax has dark lengthwise stripes. The wings have a very slight cloudiness and a brown leading edge.

 

Close up of the head.

The European Crane Fly closely resembles the Marsh Crane Fly T. oleracea (Fr. Tipule potagère). They are a nightmare to separate if you are trying to accurately identify them, especially from photos. My colleagues and I spent several hours to-ing and fro-ing on Facebook discussing my photos. In the end we settled on T. paludosa because of the colour of the antennae ie they are reddish on the first two segments, then grey. Importantly, and how most are identified, T. paludosa has 13 antennal segments and T. oleracea has 14 -- but you will go cross-eyed counting them and the segment at the tip is easy to miss in a photo. Female T. paludosa have wings that are shorter than their abdomens, whereas T. oleracea's wings are longer. But because they always rest with their wings spread at an angle it is very hard to judge this character. There are supposed to be subtle differences in the wing venation too, but I'm damned if I can see it. Likewise in the shape of the eyes - but to see that you have to have a photo from underneath and face on. Of course, if you really have to know which species you have you must take a specimen and look at the genitalia under magnification. Crane flies are notoriously difficult and fragile, so very few people take the time.

The larvae are 3-4 cm long maggots known in French as 'vers gris' (grey worms) on account of their dirt grey colour. They are squishy but tough, hence their English name of leatherjackets. They don't have legs but shift along by contracting and extending lengthwise in quite an animated way. They live underground and eat the roots of plants.

 

Female European Crane Fly resting on the outside of our house last week.

Adult European Crane Flies live for about a fortnight. They start appearing in June and can be seen until October. They tend to fly morning and evening, and favour damp habitats. Once the weather cools down in autumn they become more visible as they seek shelter, often entering houses. A female will lay several hundred black eggs, in batches of 5 or 6, as she flies or wherever she pauses to rest. The eggs will hatch in 15 days and the tiny larvae will go underground for the winter. In June they will pupate underground, finally emerging as adults in 2 or 3 weeks. The larvae are quite an important source of food for birds and amphibians.

 European Crane Flies' natural distribution is throughout Europe and they have been accidentally introduced to North America.

Baked Rice Pudding

 Homemade baked rice pudding. The milk has caramelised and been absorbed into the rice.

Riz au lait is a French classic but it is a stove top risotto style pudding. The rice pudding of my childhood is much simpler, and baked in the oven, no fussing, faffing or watchful stirring required. We've been eating rather a lot of it lately, as it is something Simon's poor radiotherapy ravaged intestines can tolerate. Luckily it is a favourite with both of us.

 

Sugar and rice in the bottom of the pie dish.

 

Ingredients

2 tbsp butter

¾ cup pudding/round/risotto rice

1/3 cup white sugar

4 cups milk

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

Method

1. Heat oven to 180°C.
2. Generously butter a deep oval pie dish.
3. Tip the rice and sugar into the dish.
4. Pour in the milk and stir.
5. Sprinkle the surface with nutmeg.
6. Place the pie dish on a baking tray and put into the oven.
7. After 30 minutes remove and stir.
8. Bake for a further hour. It will form a skin which the family will fight over because it's the best bit.
   
9. Remove and serve quickly if you want the pudding to be at its sloppy best. The longer it sits the more the rice will absorb the liquid.

 

 Just out of the oven.

 

On My Way pt2

I have an early start today. So early I  was able to take this photo from the taxi and post it here.

Today is day 25 of 35. Only another two weeks to go.

Odd Fog

We wrote at Christmas 2018 and again in September 2022 about the effect the Loire River has on local weather. 

Yesterday, as I was on my way to the hospital, I saw a bank of cloud and thought "the Loire is up to its tricks again".

I was wrong. At Chapelle Blanche St Martin we drove into some quite serious fog.

Meanwhile, in Preuilly it was a beautiful sunny day.

An Unlikely Answer

I asked yesterday what people thought this plane was doing, near the Poland/Ukraine border. All the answers I received were eminently sensible, and therefore wrong.

This plane (and two similar) were flying a very narrow grid pattern, dropping baits dosed with a rabies vaccine in order to control the spread of rabies in foxes.

I was interested to note that the plane itself is Australian designed and manufactured. I hadn't heard of GippsAero before, but I am out of touch with many things Australian.

Fun with Maps

Regular readers will know I'm a bit of a map nerd.

There's a new mapping resource available on Géoportail which I am particularly excited about. Using the website https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/donnees/lidar-hd-mnt you can get access to lidar information. At the moment it's pretty basic as far as resolution is concerned, but it is still a good tool.

Lidar stands for Light Detection and Ranging, and is a remote sensing technology that uses lasers to measure distances to objects on the Earth's surface. It operates by emitting laser pulses and measuring the time it takes for the light to reflect back to the sensor. One of the advantages is that it can be set up to show ground forms underneath vegetation.

For instance, you may remember the following blog post, about being shown the ditches that surrounded a now disappeared chateau near le Grand Pressigny. https://daysontheclaise.blogspot.com/2019/04/walking-round-invisible-castle.html. See if you can spot it on the following image:

Aerial photos show nothing, but on the lidar it's obvious. If you can't see it, or want to make a closer inspection, it can be found here.

The other map fun I've been having is with Flightradar24. I was having a whizz around, seeing if there was any excitement. This caught my eye: on (or near) the border between Poland and Ukraine. Mapping? Drone patrol? Border patrol? Something nefarious? Have a guess.

I'll answer tomorrow.

Pear and Walnut Cake

Pears and walnuts do very well in the Touraine and you will encounter pear and walnut trees everywhere -- in old orchards, around farmyards, in hedgerows. Some people have so many walnuts they take them to the artisanal crushing plant to have oil made. So in the autumn, the ingredients for this cake are easy to come by, and it uses both the nuts and the oil, as well as pears.

Me cracking homegrown walnuts.

This recipe makes a rather dense cake which keeps well and is actually better on the day after baking. Very easy, and quick to prepare except for the nuts (and you can 'cheat' by buying ready prepared nuts – buy walnut pieces rather than halves, as they will be cheaper and make no difference to the cake).

Makes 25 squares of cake

Ingredients
200ml walnut oil
200g brown sugar
4 eggs
200g sultanas
1 teaspoon quartre épices (a French spice mix of black or white pepper, ginger, nutmeg and cloves - substitute Mixed Spice or Allspice if unavailable)
300g self raising flour
200g walnut pieces (500g of unshelled walnuts will net you 200g shelled)
2-3 ripe pears, peeled, cored and cut into 1cm³

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 30cm square cake tin with silica baking paper.
2. Beat the oil and sugar until thoroughly combined, then beat in the eggs.
3. Mix in the spice and flour, then the pears, sultanas and nuts.
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 55 minutes.
5. Cool the cake in the tin on a wire rack.
6. Turn the cake out onto a board when cold and cut into 25 squares.

Serve with Pineau de Charentes, a fortified wine somewhat like sherry, that is produced to the south west of us in Poitou.

Iodine Bolete

 

Recently in the grounds of the Chateau de Chenonceau I came across a colony of large bolete mushrooms in a little grove of mature oak trees. When I first encountered them it was raining and their caps were very slimy. This made me think they were in the genus Suillus, but they grow under pines, so I was confused. I turned to the Facebook group Champignons du 37 for help, and overnight, I had a sensible suggestion as to what these mushrooms might be. By then, after a second visit, I had picked a specimen, so I had all the information necessary to confirm the mushroom's identity. Below is the suite of characters that all had to fit, or I could not say for certain I had Iodine Bolete Hemileccinum impolitus (Fr. Bolet dépoli). Syn Xerocomellus pruinatus.

• Cap slimy when wet, like suede when dry; brownish (can be light or dark) and covered in fine white fibres when young (may need a loupe to see); hemispherical when young, flattening with age; developing dimples and a lobed edge with age; 5 - 20 cm across.
• Flesh cream, thicker than the tubes and not discolouring blue when cut. 
• Fine (<1 mm diameter) evenly spaced somewhat polygonal pores.
• Tubes pale yellow when young, getting stronger yellow with age.
• Stem rough (covered in tiny scales) and thick (2 - 6 cm across); red blush at the bottom near roots, and sometimes at the top under the cap; no blue discoloration when cut.
• Spores olive brown.
• Strong odour, especially from the stem when cut (described variously as iodine or walnuts).
  
• Associated with broadleaf trees, especially oak, in warm locations.
  

 

 

To reach an identification (or to determine the species, as a mycologist would say) you need every one of these characters. That's why posting a photo snapped on your phone of a mushroom from the top is never going to get you an accurate identification, and why identification apps don't work for fungi. There are half a dozen lookalike species in this case, of which several are species where real confusion is possible.

Iodine Bolete will grow in both calcareous clay and sandy acid soil. It is present although not common throughout Europe. The mushrooms appear in late summer and through the autumn.

For the record, this species is not toxic, but nobody bothers to eat it.