Amanita umbrinolutea

🏷️ Description

Discover the intriguing Amanita umbrinolutea, also known as the Umber-Zoned Ringless Amanita, a visually captivating mushroom with a wide geographical range and a unique, elegant appearance. This mushroom is part of the Amanita genus and is found in association with conifers like pine and spruce across Europe and as far east as northwestern Pakistan and northern India. 🌲✨

🍽️ Edibility & Caution: Some authors consider A. umbrinolutea edible due to its resemblance to Amanita vaginata, particularly var. plumbea. However, its potential toxicity has not been thoroughly studied. Caution is advised, and it is best to admire this mushroom without tasting it.

🔎 Identification

🎩 Cap

• Size: 4.5–9 cm (2–3.5 in) wide.

• Shape: Starts conico-paraboloid, then becomes campanulate to convex, and finally flattens into a planar shape with a central umbo.

• Texture: Free of volval remnants with a strongly striate margin (25–35% of cap radius).

• Colors: Dark umber to grayish umber-brown at the center, pale beige in the middle, and darker near the edges of the gills. Sometimes, a strongly zonate pattern is present.

🍂 Gills

• Arrangement: Free and crowded.

• Color: Off-white to pale cream.

• Width: Up to 6 mm.

• Short Gills: Truncate, scattered, and unevenly distributed.

🦵 Stem

• Size: 11.5–18.5 cm (4.5–7.5 in) long, 6–11 mm wide.

• Color: Pale cream to beige, occasionally pale grayish brown.

• Texture: Covered in faint zigzag fibrils.

• Volva: A fleshy, membranous sack-like volva at the base, measuring 3–4 cm high, attached to the bottom 5 mm of the stem.

🌾 Spores

• Size: 10.5–13.4 × 9.5–12.5 µm, occasionally larger.

• Shape: Mostly subglobose, sometimes globose or broadly ellipsoid.

• Reaction: Inamyloid.

• Clamps: Absent from basidia.

🌍 Ecology & Distribution

• Found in Europe, extending to northwestern Pakistan and northern India.

• Grows in symbiosis with conifers, including pine and spruce.

📜 Synonyms

• Amanita battarrae (Boud.)

• Amanita inaurata var. umbrinolutea Secretan ex Gillet (1874)

• Amanita umbrinolutea var. flaccida D.A. Reid

• Amanita vaginata var. battarrae (Boud.) E.-J. Gilbert

• Amanita vaginata var. umbrinolutea (1918)

• Amanitopsis battarrae Boud.

• Amanitopsis umbrinolutea (1928)

• Amanitopsis vaginata var. umbrinolutea (1940)

Photo sources:

Photo 1 - Author: Dr. Hans-Günter Wagne (CC BY 2.0)

Photo 2 - Author: Igor_Yevdokimov (CC BY 3.0)

Photo 3 - Author: Dr. Hans-Günter Wagner (CC BY 2.0)