| name | Amanita microlepis |
| name status | nomen acceptum |
| author | Bas |
| english name | "Small-Scaled Lepidella" |
| images |
 1. Amanita microlepis, Seneca, Oconee Co., South Carolina, U.S.A.  2. Amanita microlepis, Seneca, Oconee Co., South Carolina, U.S.A. |
| intro |
Amanita microlepis is one of the few species of Amanita with gills the color of café au lait. It is also unusual for having a partial veil that is of distinctly darker tint that the cap and stipe. In the eastern U.S., the only species of section Lepidella that is known to have similarly colored gills is A. pelioma Bas, which can be distinguished by the even more unusual character of having the universal veil material (at least on the stipe) bruise blue-green. |
| cap |
Amanita microlepis has a cap up to 145 mm wide; it is whitish to cream to olive drab and sometimes darker in part. The volva forms (at least at first) a nearly continuous covering of subpyramidal warts suggesting the surface of a Lycoperdon; their color is whitish to dirty cream to yellowish pale gray or with an olivaceous tint. |
| gills | The gills of this species are very unusual in the genus in that they are the color of coffee with milk or concolorous with the universal veil or the stipe. The gills are free to narrowly adnate, without a decurrent line on the stipe apex, subcrowded to crowded, and 10.5 - 11 mm broad; the short gills are rounded truncate to subattenuate and may be attached to the stipe or the cap margin or neither. |
| stem |
The stipe is up to 135 × 20 mm and colored similarly to the cap except for the partial veil which is beige or concolorous with the gills. |
| spores |
The spores of this species measure (8.2-) 8.4 - 10.8 × (5.6-) 5.9 - 7.3 (-8.0) µm, are amyloid and broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid (infrequently elongate). Clamps are present at bases of some basidia. |
| discussion |
The species is often associated with pine or oak. Amanita microlepis has a range extending from New Jersey to Texas and, probably, into Mexico. Bas (1969) selected the present species upon which to base the name of stirps Microlepis. Other taxa in this stirps include A. abrupta Peck, A. atkinsoniana Coker, A. costaricensis Tulloss, Halling, & G. M. Muell. nom. prov., A. nitida sensu Coker, A. onusta (Howe) Sacc.), A. sphaerobulbosa Hongo.—R. E. Tulloss |
| brief editors | RET |
| name | Amanita microlepis | ||||||||
| author | Bas. 1969. Persoonia 5: 424, figs. 149-151. | ||||||||
| name status | nomen acceptum | ||||||||
| english name | "Small-Scaled Lepidella" | ||||||||
| MycoBank nos. | 308571 | ||||||||
| GenBank nos. |
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| holotypes | L; isotype, MICH | ||||||||
| intro |
The following text may make multiple use of each data field. The field may contain magenta text presenting data from a type study and/or revision of other original material cited in the protolog of the present taxon. Macroscopic descriptions in magenta are a combination of data from the protolog and additional observations made on the exiccata during revision of the cited original material. The same field may also contain black text, which is data from a revision of the present taxon (including non-type material and/or material not cited in the protolog). Paragraphs of black text will be labeled if further subdivision of this text is appropriate. Olive text indicates a specimen that has not been thoroughly examined (for example, for microscopic details) and marks other places in the text where data is missing or uncertain. The following material not directly from the protolog of the present taxon is based on original research by R. E. Tulloss. Bas (1969): Basidiomes medium to large. | ||||||||
| pileus | (50-) 118 - 142 mm diam., hemispherical to broadly campanulate, sometimes becoming rimose on expansion, pale at first, darkening with age, whitish to cream to olive drab (5C3) or browner in places, becoming brown where cut, shiny where exposed; context whitish, more café au lait under pileipellis, becoming faintly watery brown when cut, 11.5 - 12 mm thick at stipe, thinning evenly to the margin; margin incurved at first, then decurved, nonstriate, at times short-striate in age, appendiculate with pulverulence or fine floccose warts, evenly distributed, colored like the universal veil, sometimes with a narrow (1 mm wide) sterile margin; universal veil as a dense, nearly continuous covering of small subpyramidal to irregular warts arising from a general floccose-pulverulent layer or close-packed small warts suggesting the surface of some Lycoperdon spp., verruculose to finely verruculose (lens), whitish to dirty cream to yellowish pale gray or with an olive tint, largest becoming dark at their tip, adnate or detersile dependent on weather and state of gelatinization of the pileipellis. | ||||||||
| lamellae | free to narrowly adnate, without decurrent line on stipe apex, subcrowded to crowded, in mass dingy beige or concolorous with the universal veil and/or stipe; in side view beige or slightly sordid beige or pale café au lait (5B4), slightly browner where drying in situ, 10.5 - 11 mm broad, infrequently anastomosing; lamellulae rounded truncate to subattenuate, may be attached to stipe or margin or neither. | ||||||||
| stipe | (95-) 115 - 131 (-150) × (6.5-) 15.5 - 18 mm, off-white to concolorous with the universal veil covering of the pileus, browning from handling, narrowing upward to cylindric, flaring or not expanding much at apex, with surface finely flocculent or with small fibrous-fibrillose recurved scales in upper half and small recurved scales below; bulb broadly napiform to fusiform, 33 - 76 × (30--) 36 - 41 mm, upper surface exposed above substrate; context pale cream or only slightly paler than surface to concolorous, insect tunnels concolorous, watery brown when cut or bruised, solid; partial veil superior to subapical to apical, membranous to submembranous, beige or concolorous with lamellae in mass, tearing, striate above, with many small irregular warts evenly distributed below, with thickened edge; universal veil in many rings of small recurved scales conscolorous with universal veil on pileus. | ||||||||
| odor/taste | Odor somewhat musky, close to (but not exactly) like dog feces or in the "chlorine" group or like a disinfectant. Taste not recorded. | ||||||||
| macrochemical tests |
5% KOH - negative on pileipellis. Spot test for tyrosinase (L-tyrosine) - faintly positive quickly in much of basidiocme; strongly positive only in pileipellis (where cut), in pileus context at very margin of pileus or just above lamellae near stipe, and in center of stipe context. Spot test for laccase (syringaldazine) - ??. Test vouchers: ??. | ||||||||
| pileipellis | Bas (1969): colorless to yellow in alkaline solution; filamentous hyphae 2 - 7 μm wide, interwoven, subradial, distinctly gelatinized near surface. | ||||||||
| lamella trama | Bas (1969): bilateral; with terminal inflated cells probably absent; clamps found on narrow hyphae. | ||||||||
| subhymenium | Bas (1969): ramose to inflated ramose or subcellular. | ||||||||
| basidia | Bas (1969): (35-) 40 - 55 × 9 - 12 μm, 4-sterigmate; clamps present. | ||||||||
| universal veil | Bas (1969): On pileus: pale yellow to greenish yellow in alkaline solution; filamentous hyphae 3 - 8 μm wide, rather abundant, ascending-interweaving, branching; inflated cells predominant, mainly globose to ellipsoid, but also sometimes ovoid or clavate or elongate, 20 - 90 (-120) × 15 - 70 (-100) μm, in more or less erect branching parallel rows. On pileus, in wart base: hyphae more abundant than in upper part of wart; elongate cells (up to 100 × 25 - 50 μm) more abundant than in upper part of wart. On stipe base: with tissue differing from that in cap warts by being denser, having much more abundant and strongly branching hyphae, and having inflated cells more rarely in rows (with those rows shorter than those seen in pileal warts). | ||||||||
| stipe context | Bas (1969): longitudinally acrophysalidic; filamentous hyphae 3 - 10 μm wide, longitudinally oriented, abundant; acrophysalides scattered, up to 300 × 25 μm. | ||||||||
| lamella edge tissue | Bas (1969): "rows of subglobose, pyriform and clavate cells, 15 - 35 × 10 - 18 μm, sometimes with slightly thickened walls." | ||||||||
| basidiospores |
Bas (1969): [50/4/2] 9.0 - 11.0 × (6.0-) 6.5 - 8.0 μm, (Q = 1.25 - 1.65; Q = 1.40 - 1.50), yellowish, thin-walled, amyloid, broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid to elongate; apiculusundescribed; contents homogeneous or granular or guttulate, refractive; white to cream in deposit. composite of data from all material revised by RET: [55/3/3] (8.2-) 8.4 - 10.8 × (5.6-) 5.9 - 7.3 (-8.0) µm, (L = 9.3 - 9.9 µm; L’ = 9.5 µm; W = 6.2 - 7.0 µm; W’ = 6.6 µm; Q = (1.22-) 1.27 - 1.60 (-1.86); Q = 1.36 - 1.51; Q’ = 1.45), hyaline, colorless, smooth, thin-walled, amyloid, broadly ellipsoid (infrequently elongate); apiculus sublateral, ??; contents monoguttulate; cream to off-white in deposit. | ||||||||
| ecology | Solitary to subgregarious. Massachusetts: At ca. 360 m elev. In mixed forest. New Jersey: At ca. 90 m elev. In loamy clay in lawn under Quercus sp. New York: At ca. 30 m elev. South Carolina: At ca. 265 m elev. In sandy loam under loam/duff under Pinus and Quercus. Texas: Scattered along banks of gully. | ||||||||
| material examined |
Bas (1969): U.S.A.: MASSACHUSETTS—Franklin Co. - Conway St. For. [42°27'55" N/ 72°42'56" W, 358 m], 23.viii.1963 C. Bas 3784 (holotype, L; isotype, MICH). NORTH CAROLINA—Orange Co. - Chapel Hill, 29.ix.1913 W. C. Coker 858 (paratype, NCU). RET: U.S.A.: NEW JERSEY—Mercer Co. - Princeton, Mt. Lucas Rd. [40°22'36" N/ 74°39'23" W, 91 m], 15.vi.1986 Neal Macdonald s.n. [Tulloss 6-15-86-A] (RET 090-6). NEW YORK—Suffolk Co. (Long Isl.) - Brookhaven St. Pk. [40°55'16" N/ 72°52'09" W, 29 m], 28.viii.2008 Joel Horman s.n. (RET 447-7). SOUTH CAROLINA—Oconee Co. - Seneca [34°46'09" N/ 82°57'55" W, 263 m], 25.xi.1985 R. E. Tulloss 11-25-85-E (RET 132-9). TEXAS—Brazoria Co. - Liverpool, 0.4 km NE of Hillhouse home, 19.ix.1970 Ervin Hillhouse 184 (MICH). | ||||||||
| discussion |
Bas (1969): "On the photograph of the paratype published by Coker ([1917: pl. 57]) the characeristic rings of small warts on the upper part of the bulb are not clearly visible, although they are very distinct in the two dried specimens of that collection (Coker 858) especially in the specimen to which the right hand figure belongs. "In the notes on Coker 858 published by Coker (1917: 79) the caps of the only two specimens of that collection are said to measure 16 and 22 cm across. This must be a mistake, judging from the photograph (pl. 57) he published simultaneously and from the present size of the dried fuirt-bodies. "In many respects Amanita microlepis is intermediate between A. cokeri...and A. abrupta..., all occurring in the same regions. Amanita cokeri has larger, more elongate spores..., larger and firmer warts on the cap, a complex ring, a rooting bulb with usually coarser warts or scales and an indistinct smell, while A. abrupta has smaller and relatively shorter spores..., a larger, more globose bulb with inconspicuous remnants of the volva, a less strongly gelatinized upper layer of the pileipellis, and an indistinct smell. "Coker (1917) arranged material of A. microlepis under his 'A chlorinosma form A' because of the not pure white colour of the cap and greyish cream to ashy grey gills. Other collections arranged by him under that name belong to a usually stronger coloured species without clamps and with a pulverulent partial veil and volva, described in this work as A. pelioma.... "Amanita microlepis is not closely related to A. chlorinosma..., which species has a more friable volva and partial veil, and slightly smaller but considerably slenderer spores.... "For comparison with A. atkinsonisana see [that taxon page]." | ||||||||
| citations | —R. E. Tulloss | ||||||||
| editors | RET | ||||||||
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| name | Amanita microlepis |
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Spore data sets and their composite
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