Amanita ceciliae
Description
Amanita ceciliae is a basidiomycete fungus in the genus Amanita. It is characterized by bearing a large fruit body with a brown cap. In young specimens, the cap is yellowy colored and has numerous fleecy grey patches, by maturity the cap loses most of its yellow tint and looks a duller brown, but often retains the fleecy patches. The cap margin may be paler than the center and is noticeably grooved. The stem has a fragile grey volva at the base.
Amanita ceciliae is considered an edible mushroom and used as food, although many field guides recommend avoiding eating it because of numerous similar poisonous species.
Identifying and consuming Amanita ceciliae proved to be a challenging yet rewarding experience. This mushroom, akin to the "puffer-fish" of the mushroom kingdom due to its difficulty in identification, offered a pleasant culinary surprise. Sauteed simply with butter, its flavor was described as pleasantly earthy and nutty, with no reported adverse effects post-consumption. Despite the challenge posed by the partial veil on some specimens, the overall experience highlighted its potential as a flavorful addition to a meal, underscored by the importance of careful identification in mushroom foraging.
Common names: Snakeskin Grisette, Strangulated Amanita, Cecilia's Ringless.
Mushroom Identification
Cap
The cap is 75 - 110± mm wide, brownish-yellow at first, losing all yellow tints at maturity and becoming a sordid brown, subellipsoid at first, later campanulate, and often decorated with dark gray to blackish gray volval remnants. The cap's margin is distinctly striate.
Gills
The gills' are distinctly free at first and tend to become remote; they are sometimes forked or grown together in places. The short gills are abruptly truncate.
Stem
The stem 100 - 160± × 15± - 19± mm, whitish and narrowing upward. It is decorated with one or more rings of dark volval material (with its coloring changing as it does on the cap). The stem is not firmly stuffed and is often at least partially hollow. There is no ring on the stem. The remains of the volva on the stem's base usually take the form of a short, pallid, cup-like structure.
Odor and Taste
The original description of this species states that it lacks an odor and has a sweet taste.
Spores
Spores measure (9.5-) 10.3 - 14.9 (-25) × (8.6-) 9.5 - 14.3 (-25) m and are inamyloid and globose to subglobose (rarely broadly ellipsoid). A few "giant" spores are commonly found in amount of gill tissue. Clamps are not found at the bases of basidia.
Spore Print
White.
Season
August to November.
Look-Alikes
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The stem is smooth, without snakeskin pattern.
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Has a yellow-orange cap and white gills.
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It is orange in color and has a snakeskin-like pattern on the stem.
Amanita sinicoflava
Looks quite similar, but it has a sack-like volva and occurs in North America.
Amanita sorocula
This Colombian and Mesoamerican species is often mistaken for A. ceciliae, as both mushrooms have a volva with a weak structure and greying gills. The notable difference is the strong yellow color of the cap in immature A. ceciliae mushrooms.
Amanita liquii
This Chinese species is similar but the yellow-brown, red-brown or green-brown colored cap of A. ceciliae are much different from the brown-black cap of A. liquii. Also, the volval remnants of A. ceciliae converge at the base to form a ring-like zone, unlike A. liquii. Apart from this, the cellular pigments in the sterile strip around the gills and volval remnants are much darker in color compared to A. ceciliae.
History
Amanita ceciliae was first described by Miles Joseph Berkeley, an English cryptogamist and clergyman, and Christopher Edmund Broome, a British mycologist, in 1854. It is placed in the genus Amanita and section Vaginatae. Section Vaginatae consists of mushrooms with special characteristics – such as the absence of a ring, and very few clamp connections at the bases of the basidia.
The name Amanita inaurata, given by Swiss mycologist Louis Secretan in 1833, has also been used for this species. In 1978, the name was declared nomenclatural incorrect according to the rules of International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. The present name, Amanita ceciliae, was given by Cornelis Bas, a Dutch mycologist, in 1984.
The specific epithet ceciliae is in honor of Cecilia Berkeley, wife of British botanist and mycologist Miles Joseph Berkeley. This is a nod to Cecilia Berkeley's involvement in her husband's mycology work.
Synonyms
Agaricus ceciliae Berk. & Broome (1854)
Amanitopsis ceciliae (Berk. & Br.) Wasser 1992
Amanita inaurata Secr. ex Gill., 1874
Amanitopsis inaurata (Secr. ex Gill.) Fay., 1889
Amanita vaginata var. inaurata (Secr. ex Gill.) Sacc., 1915
Photo sources:
Photo 1 - Author: Amanita_ceciliae.jpg: archenzoderivative work: Ak ccm (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Photo 2 - Author: Dr. Hans-Günter Wagner (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Photo 3 - Author: 2009-10-24_Amanita_ceciliae_group_62030.jpg: (CC BY-SA 3.0)