This species is distributed in the Americas from eastern Canada south to Costa Rica. The black pigmentation, wooly pileus and stipe, rufescence on injury, and globose spores with reticulate ornamentation are diagnostic. Differences in the quality of the surface scales of the pileus between S. confusus and S. floccopus have been championed by several boletologists as a way of distinguishing between the two. However, the only reliable method to tell them apart is to examine the spore ornamentation (see below left). Compare the pileus surface ornamentation in the image of S. confusus. The specimen shown here came from under Quercus oleoides at the Agua Thermales area in sector Santa Maria on Rincon de la Vieja of the Guanacaste Conservation Area. Known in Costa Rica from Guanacaste south to the Cordillera Talamanca. Strobilomyces has been documented for Costa Rica by L. D. Gómez [Brenesia 38: 95-103. 1992(1995)].