Leccinum scabrum

The fruitbody is a bolete - hence fleshy, with a cap atop a central stem and with pores on the underside of the cap. The convex cap is up to 15 centimetres wide, light to dark brown and may be somewhat sticky in humid conditions. With age the surface may break up into fine, flat scales. The pore surface is initially whitish but later brownish. The stem is up to 15 centimetres long and 5 centimetres wide, often broader at the base than at the top. It is whitish but overlaid with dark scales that are coarser towards the base of the stem.   

The flesh is soft and white, with either no discolouration or a slight pinkish to reddish reaction when exposed to air.

These boletes appear on soil near birch (Betula) trees. Species of Leccinum form mycorrhizal associations with various northern hemisphere trees and there is no native species of Leccinum. A native fungus that had been named as Leccinum australiense in 1991 was placed in the genus Sutorius in 2012.

Look-alikes

In the Canberra area this is probably distinctive - if you check all of the features noted above.  

Leccinum holopus, another birch-associated species has been reported from Australia but den Bakker & Noordeloos (see below) describe this as a small to medium-sized, slender to robust Leccinum; cap usually whitish to pale brownish; stem scales usually whitish to light brownish; flesh either without any discoloration or some bluish spots in the stem base. Furthermore they report it as a species of wetter habitats (e.g. with birch in Sphagnum bogs or on humid, peaty soil) whereas Leccinum scabrum is a species of drier habitats.

References

Den Bakker, H.C. & Noordeloos, M.E. (2005), A revision of European species of Leccinum Gray and notes on extralimital species, Persoonia, 18, 511-587.

Halling, R.E. et al (2012), Sutorius: a new genus for Boletus eximius, Mycologia, 104, 951-961.