Amanita annulatovaginata
A wild ectomycorrhizal Amanita of the Congo rainforest, recorded as locally consumed in Tshopo province. Its preparation was not established, and the genus includes deadly species.
Mushrooms
Rubinoboletus luteopurpureus
A wild ectomycorrhizal bolete of the Tshopo rainforests in DR Congo, recorded as locally eaten in a 2020 interview study. Species-level food use is not independently assessed.
What it is
Rubinoboletus luteopurpureus is a bolete, a mushroom with a porous spore surface rather than gills, that grows in association with the roots of rainforest trees. It is an ectomycorrhizal fungus: it lives in a partnership with its host trees and is not grown on wood or litter.
The name is recorded here as a research label. The catalogue entry does not validate it against a current accepted taxonomy, so the scientific name should be read as the name the source used, not as a settled species identity. The entry describes the supply as wild.
Sources for this section
Where it is recorded
The only place recorded for this species is Tshopo province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The regional study that frames this record is Milenge Kamalebo and De Kesel, published in the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine in 2020. That study sampled rainforest plots and interviewed 160 informants from six ethnic communities about wild edible ectomycorrhizal fungi, and it reports these fungi as an underused food source in the region.
The study abstract does not name this species. The species-level food record comes from the supplied catalogue entry, which cites the same article. The distinction matters: the article supports the regional food context, and the catalogue supplies the link to this name.
Sources for this section
Food use and its limits
The catalogue records this fungus as locally consumed in the Tshopo interviews. It treats that as an ethnomycological food-use record, not an independent toxicological assessment. No preparation method is established for this species, and the catalogue does not describe any stage that makes it safe to eat.
No edibility or safety verdict is given here. Whether this bolete is safe to eat, and how it would need to be prepared, is not established by the sources available to this page. Ethnomycological use records show that people have eaten the fungus in one place; they do not show that the same fruiting body is safe for a reader elsewhere to identify and eat.
Sources for this section
What remains unknown
The sources leave the following open: the accepted name and any synonyms, the morphology needed to separate this species from look-alike boletes, the season and habitat detail beyond ectomycorrhizal rainforest growth, the local name used in the interviews, the lookalikes, and toxicity data. Each is a gap to close before any further food account is written.
Wild fungi are identified by people with local knowledge. Fermenta cannot identify a gathered specimen or guarantee that it is edible. Have any wild mushroom competently identified by a qualified local expert before eating it.
Sources for this section
Places
Tshopo province
Documented use · Region evidenceRecorded as locally consumed in voucher-backed Tshopo interviews in the catalogue entry; species-specific preparation was not established.
Related
More from Tshopo
Amanita echinulata
A wild ectomycorrhizal Amanita of the Congo rainforest, recorded as locally consumed in Tshopo province. Its preparation was not established, and the genus includes deadly species.
Amanita robusta
Amanita robusta Beeli is a poorly documented Central African Amanita known from voucher-backed rainforest collections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cameroon. A Tshopo study reports local food use for a taxonomically supported voucher, but neither that record nor the name makes an unknown Amanita safe to identify or eat.
Armillaria heimii
Armillaria heimii is a saprotrophic fungus of the honey-fungus genus, recorded as a wild food in Tshopo province, DR Congo. Its preparation and safety are not established in the sources.
Calyptella longipes
Calyptella longipes is a wood and litter decaying fungus of the rainforests of Tshopo province, DR Congo, where some ethnic groups in voucher-backed interviews eat it. Its preparation was not recorded.
Cantharellus congolensis
Cantharellus congolensis is an ectomycorrhizal chanterelle of sub-Saharan Africa, eaten in the Democratic Republic of the Congo under local names. Its edibility rests on food-use surveys, not on toxicity tests.
Cantharellus floridulus
Cantharellus floridulus is an ectomycorrhizal rainforest fungus that informants in Tshopo province, DR Congo, eat in voucher-backed interviews. Its preparation is not recorded, and the source gives no toxicity statement.
Cookeina speciosa
A forest cup fungus of the Tshopo province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, recorded in local interviews as eaten. The species-level preparation is not established.
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Sources
Journal of Ethnobiology and EthnomedicineHistory · Regional food context
Wild edible ectomycorrhizal fungi: an underutilized food resource from the rainforests of Tshopo province (Democratic Republic of the Congo)Study in Tshopo rainforests of wild edible ectomycorrhizal fungi, 2020
Interviews with 160 informants from 6 ethnic communities
Wild edible ectomycorrhizal fungi reported as an underused food resource
Cited in: What it is; Where it is recorded; Food use and its limits; What remains unknown
PubMed CentralCatalogue source
Wild edible ectomycorrhizal fungi: an underutilized food resource from the rainforests of Tshopo province (Democratic Republic of the Congo)Catalogue entry cites this article for the species record; the page returned a verification challenge when fetched, so its text was not read here
Cited in: What it is; Where it is recorded; Food use and its limits; What remains unknown