Imleria badia such as food expert Antonio Carluccio, and is sold in markets in Europe and central Mexico. Its mushrooms are less often infested by maggots than other boletes. Several European studies have demonstrated that the mushroom can bioaccumulate some trace metals from the soil, such as mercury, cobalt, and nickel. Additionally, the mushroom contains a pigment that concentrates radioactive caesium; specimens collected in Europe following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster contained several times more caesium-137 than those collected before the incident. The bay bolete was first named as "Boletus castaneus" ß "badius" (i.e. a subspecies of "Boletus castaneus") by Elias Magnus Fries
Radiation effects from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster trace amounts of radioactivity would reach California and Mexico around 19 March. These predictions were tested by a worldwide network of highly sensitive radiative isotope measuring equipment, with the resulting data used to assess any potential impact to human health as well as the status of the reactors in Japan. Consequently, by 18 March radioactive fallout including isotopes of iodine-131, iodine-132, tellurium-132, iodine-133, caesium-134 and caesium-137 was detected in air filters at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. Due to an anticyclone south of Japan, favorable westerly winds were dominant during most of the first week of the accident, depositing