Amanita praecox - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
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name Amanita praecox
name status nomen provisorum
author Lamoureux
english name "Early Spring Amanita"
images
  • Amanita praecox, Pike Co., Pennsylvania, U.S.A.Amanita praecox, Pike Co., Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

    1. Amanita praecox, Pike Co., Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

  • Amanita praecox, ?, U.S.A.Amanita praecox, ?, U.S.A.

    2. Amanita praecox, ?, U.S.A.

  • Amanita praecox, ?, U.S.A.Amanita praecox, ?, U.S.A.

    3. Amanita praecox, ?, U.S.A.

  • Amanita praecox, ?, U.S.A.Amanita praecox, ?, U.S.A.

    4. Amanita praecox, ?, U.S.A.

  • intro The following text is based on original research of R. E. Tulloss.
    cap The dull .cap of A. praecox is 35 - 70 mm wide, yellowish with tints of orange and gray or pale tan with a slightly darker center or pale yellow overall or brownish yellow to brown in the center and cream to pale yellow near the margin, and unchanging when cut or bruised. The cap's shape is convex with a decurved margin at first, then planoconvex; it is subumbonate to umbonate, may become concave with age, is often tacky, and is viscid when wet.  The cap's flesh is white or concolorous with the skin of the cap but paler, unchanging when cut or bruised, slightly pigmented under the cap's skin (especially with a brown tint in the center), and 2.5 - 3.5 mm thick over the stem.  The cap's margin is striate (with striations occupying 20% to 25% of the cap's radius) and nonappendiculate.  Volval remnants on the cap are absent or take the form of a cottony patch or patches; the remnants are submembranous and white to cream.
    gills The gills of this species are free with a slight decurrent line on the upper stem or narrowly adnate with a decurrent tooth or line on the upper stem.  The gills are close to subcrowded, white to cream in mass, ?? in side view, unchanging when cut or bruised, and 4 - 5 mm broad.  The short gills are truncate to subtruncate to subattenuate, of diverse lengths, and unevenly distributed.
    stem The stem is 58 - 135 × 5 - 16.5 mm, white to whitish to off-white to cream, becomes brown when handled, is cylindric or narrows upward, and flares at its top.  There is minute pulverulence near the top of the stem (10× lens), below which, the stem is minutely fibrillose (10× lens).  The bulb of the stem is starkly white, occasionally has white mycelial "threads" extending from its base, and measures 15 - 32 × 11 - 28 mm.  The flesh of the stem is moist and pale yellow with cream streaking to sordid white to whitish to pale cream and hollow or partially stuffed with white cottony material.  The stem's ring is evident only in young specimens; it has a thickened margin, is superior to median, white to whitish to cream, submembranous, and is easily lost.  The volva takes the form of two concentric white ridges on top of the stem's bulb.  The inner ridge (sometimes missing) representing the remains of the limbus internus (this material may also be left on the stem where it appears as sub-felted, white material).  The outer ridge is sometimes a well-defined cottony white submembranous limb.
    odor/taste Odor and taste have not been recorded for this mushroom.
    spores The spores measure (6.3-) 7.3 - 9.8 (-12.6) × (5.6-) 7.0 - 9.1 (-11.9) µm and are globose to subglobose to infrequently broadly ellipsoid (rarely ellipsoid) and inamyloid.  Clamps are infrequent at, or absent from, bases of basidia.
    discussion Nearly always associated with Canadian Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis).  One of the first amanitas to appear in northwestern New Jersey (hardwood-Canadian Hemlock forest) in June.—R. E. Tulloss
    brief editors RET

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