I find gigantic King Bolete mushroom in the woods

My dog with shroom. Photos By Ken Korczak

By KEN KORCZAK

I take a long jaunt through the woods just about every evening after a long day of writing, foraging, scouring the the Minnesota woodlands for cool plants, edible and otherwise.

I was absolutely god-smacked when I came across this gigantic mushroom. It's about 8 or 9 inches across the top and the stem must be three inches around. It's about 8 inches high. What is it? I am absolutely not a mushroom expert, so take this with a grain of salt, but after doing some research, I'm fairly certain this is the King Bolete. There is an outside chance that it may be fly agaric, but that species tends to have a spotty top, and also a red top, so I have all but ruled out the latter.

King bolete is good to eat -- but I have no interest in testing the theory that I am right about the identity of this magnificent shroom. To me, the joy was in encountering this magical and enormous fungi in the woods.

Incidentally, in my fast-selling ebook MINNESOTA PARANORMALA I tell the true story of two Minnesota men who also encountered a large mushroom in the woods -- but the one they found was some three-feet tall and three feet around -- gigantic! But size of the monster mushroom wasn't the strangest aspect of this story ... believe me ...

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