Leccinum versipelle, also known as Orange Birch Bolete, is a large or massive bolete, that can weigh up to 1.5 kg and has a distinctive orange cap, greyish-yellow pores and a scaly stem. It grows solitary or in small scattered groups on soil specifically under birch trees and on heaths, sometimes together with Leccinum scabrum (the Brown Birch Bolete).

Cap clear orange or red-brown. Round to start with, then oval and finally convex. Grainy or smooth as dry, and sticky when damp. The orange cap skin hangs down over the margin. Pores are circular and small. They are at first whitish, then buff, darkening rust where bruised. Tubes are similarly coloured as the pores, wine-coloured where cut, and depressed. Stem tapers slightly towards the apex and has a white, pale grey, or yellowish-grey surface covered with dark brown or blackish woolly scales. When cut, the pale flesh of the stem changes from pale grey near the apex to a blue-green colour and eventually darkens to an almost black shade, particularly near the base of the stem. The stem has no ring. Spore print ochraceous brown.

Microscopic Features: The spores are fusiform in shape, with thin walls measuring 11-16 x 3.5-4.5µm. They are inamyloid.

Leccinum versipelle on the www.first-nature.com web site.