Amanita vittadinii

Description
Mushroom Identification
Synonyms

Description

Amanita vittadinii is a symbiotic basidiomycete mushroom belonging to the Amanitaceae family. It is characterized by the white color of the whole fruiting body (carpophore) and by the presence of scaliness in all its parts.

This mushroom is found in grassy and uncultivated places in the period between late summer and autumn; grows solitary or in groups of a few specimens among the grass in uncultivated places but it is not common. It can fructify also be distant from arboreal essences, not necessarily being mycorrhizal species.

Common names: Barefoot Amanita.

Mushroom Identification

Cap
The cap of A. vittadinii is 75 - 170 mm wide, fleshy, from globose via hemispherical to plano-convex, white to pale dingy ochraceous, brownish at the center with age, dry, with an at first inflexed, then straight, nonsulcate, appendiculate, projecting margin. The flesh is white and unchanging or turning slightly yellowish. Pyramidal, subpyramidal, or patch-like volval remnants are present at the center, and appressed, patch- to scale-like remnants are present near the margin; the volval remnants are adnate and white to pinkish- or grayish-brownish.
Gills
The gills are rather crowded, free, rather thick, broad, attenuate, and white, cream, greenish cream, or pale greenish-yellow. The short gills are abundant and truncate.
Stem
The stem is 100 - 160 × 15 - 25 mm, subcylindrical, mostly somewhat attenuate at the base, solid, white, and slightly brunnescent. Appressed to recurved, flat, membranous scales are concentrically arranged above the ring.
Odor and Taste
This species has little odor at first, but (to some) the odor becomes sweetish and nauseating. Bertault (1964) reported that the smell was like a biscuit (probably in the British sense of a sweet cake or cookie) and that the odor was why this species (in his experience) was sought after as an edible in Morocco. The taste is said to be indistinct.
Spores
The spores measure (9-) 10 - 13 (-15) × (6.5-) 7.5 - 10 (-11) µm (Bas, 1969) and are broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid and amyloid. Clamps are abundant at the bases of basidia.