Amanita foetidissima - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella

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name	Amanita foetidissima
name status	nomen acceptum
author	D. A. Reid & Eicker
english name	"Stinker Lepidella"
images	1. Amanita foetidissima, Centurion, Praetoria, Gauteng, South Africa. (RET 728-3) 2. Amanita foetidissima, Centurion, Praetoria, Gauteng, South Africa. (RET 728-3)
intro	This description is based on the original description of Amanita foetidissima.
cap	According to the original description of A. foetidissima (Reid and Eicker, 1991), the cap is 70 - 140 mm wide (and said to grow much larger), initially conico-convex, then convex or convex-campanulate and finally applanate, pale creamy buff to buff, and occasionally more brightly colored with yellowish ochre tints. The surface disrupts from an early age into thick, soft, concolorous or darker, floccose warts, passing into cob-webby fibrils towards the margin.
gills	The gills are 10 - 20 mm broad and pale cream to dirty cream.
stem	The stem is 70 - 160 × 10 - 20 mm, solid, sqarrose, with buffy brown squamules on a whitish background.
spores	The spores measure 7.0 - 9.0 × 6.2 - 8.0 µm according to the published description and are amyloid and subglobose to globose to broadly ellipsoid. Basidia bear clamps. Examination of spores from a single specimen from a collection cited in the published description yielded measurements of (8.3-) 9.0 - 10.6 (-11.5) × 7.0 - 8.5 (9.0) µm, and the spores are broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid.
discussion	Amanita foetidissima was originally described from South Africa. It has also been reported from Zambia. Unfortunately, the name is invalid as published, due to uncertainty as to which of two herbaria named in the paper is the location of the holotype. This is a species of grasslands and public open spaces without trees. It is strikingly similar both macro- and microscopically to A. nauseosa (Wakef.) D. A. Reid and is a probable vicariant ("sister") taxon of the latter. One difference between the two is the occasional appearance of A. foetidissima with rather strikingly bright cap colors. This suggests to me the possibility that it is subject to something akin to the "yellowing syndrome" that is observed in a number of taxa such as Amanita subsolitaria (Murrill) Murrill.—R. E. Tulloss
brief editors	RET

name

Amanita foetidissima

author

D. A. Reid. & Eicker. 1991. Mycol. Res. 95: 83, figs. 7-12, 42, 45-47.

name status

nomen acceptum

english name

"Stinker Lepidella"

MycoBank nos.

129732

GenBank nos.

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accession	locus	voucher	source
MK116537	nrITS	21.i.2016 Glen van Niekerk s.n. (RET 728-3)	L. V. Kudzma, Annandale, NJ
MK116538	nrLSU	21.i.2016 Glen van Niekerk s.n. (RET 728-3)	L. V. Kudzma, Annandale, NJ

holotypes

location not unambiguously designated

PRUM?? or K??

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 is based upon original research by R. E. Tulloss.

protolog: Basidiomes large to very large.

pileus

protolog: 70 - 140 mm wide (said to grow much larger), pale creamy buff to buff, occasionally more brightly colored with yellowish ocher tints, initially conico-conivex, then convex or convex-campanulate, finally planar; context white, exuding copious slightly watery juice in young specimens; margin "strongly exceeding" end of lamellae; universal veil as thick soft floccose warts, concolorous or slightly darker, becoming cob-webby fibrils toward margin, often sticking to fingers when collected, with age sometimes as flat polygons, in wet weather sometimes quite smooth, sometimes as upturned scales on deeply fissured surface in dry weather, bruising orangey brown.

lamellae

protolog: attachment not described, compactness of arrangement not described; pale to dirty cream, 10 - 20 mm broad; lamellulae not described.

gleba

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stipe

protolog: 70 - 160 × 10 -20 mm, white, narrowest near mid-stipe, sometimes exuding brown droplets from apical region in wet weather; bulb 25 - 30 mm wide, flattened below (per figure); context solid, white (see pileus regarding exudate); partial veil membranous, but fragile and fugacious, concolorous [probably with universal veil?—ed.], with yellowish buff floccose scales on underside; universal veil covering stipe below the partial veil, as dense, squarrose, buffy brown squamules, collapsing on stipe with age, bruising orange-brown to reddish brown.

odor/taste

protolog: Odor nauseous or very strongly unpleasant.

macrochemical
tests

none recorded.

pileipellis

not described in protolog.

pileus context

not described in protolog.

lamella trama

not described in protolog.

subhymenium

not described in protolog.

RET: dominantly pseudoparenchymatic (cellular); filamentous undifferentiated hyphae branching occasionally present.

basidia

protolog: 50 - 52 × 9.0 - 9.5 μm, 4-sterigmate; clamps present.

RET: 52^±: × 10.5^±: μm, 4-sterigmate, with sterigmata up to ?? μm, arising from inflated cells or uninflated hyphal segments; clamps present.

universal veil

protolog: On pileus: inflated cells in chains, thin-walled, barrel-formed to fusiform, 70 - 170 × 15 - 32 μm, with terminal elements fusoid; clamps present. On stipe: not described.

RET: On pileus: with elements periclinally aligned, with yellow-walled elements not found; filamentous undifferentiated hyphae 2.5 - 8.9 μm, scattered, some in narrow fascicles; inflated cells dominating, 58 - 114 × 19.0 - 43 μm, thin-walled, in terminal chains, narrowly to boardly fusiform or clavate or ovoid or ellipsoid or narrowly ellipsoid to broadly clavate; clamps present on septa between uninflated hyphal segements and between inflated cells.

stipe context

not described in protolog.

partial veil

not described in protolog.

lamella edge tissue

not described in protolog.

basidiospores

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protolog: [-/-/-] 7.0 - 9.0 × 6.2 - 8.0 μm, hyaline, thin-walled, amyloid, subglobose to ellipsoid (per figure); white in deposit.
[-/-/-] 9.0 - 10.0 × 6.0 - 6.2 μm, ellipsoid to elongate (per figure).
[-/-/-] 8.2 - 9.5 × 7.0 - 8.0 μm, subglobose to broadly ellipsoid (per figure).

[Note: Reid had a habit of describing spores from different collections separately. He even described groups of spores from a single collection separately if he judged them to be of different shapes. He did not use Q in describing the spores. He persisted in this practice for more than two decades after Bas (1969) had provided a different approach for spore description. Reid's approach is incompatible with the generation of sporographs unless one can make some intelligent guesses at the shapes of the spores measured in lateral view. Unfortunately, very few of the spores illustrated in the present case are shown in lateral view.—ed.]

RET: [10/1/1] (8.3-) 9.0 - 10.6 (-11.5) × 7.0 - 8.5 (-9.0) μm, (L = 10.0 μm; L' = 10.0 μm; W = 7.7 μm; W' = 7.7 μm; Q = 1.22 - 1.38 (-1.57); Q = 1.29 ; Q' = 1.29), hyaline, colorless, smooth, thin-walled, amyloid, broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid, adaxially flattened; apiculus sublateral, cylindric, proportionately small; contents monoguttulate with additional small granules; white in deposit.

ecology

protolog: At 1365 m elev. Solitary or gregarious or growing in fairy rings. In grassland, playing fields, lawns, or waste grassy areas. At 1430 m elev. In lawn under imported street tree (Quercus palustris) (eastern North American).

material examined

protolog: SOUTH AFRICA: GAUTENG—City of Tshwane - Pretoria, Lynnwood Glen, 15.ii.1989 unkn. coll. s.n. (holotype, K); Pretoria, Univ. of Pretoria campus, L. C. de Villiers sports grounds [25°45'10" S/ 28º14'46" E, 1365 m], 15.ii.1989 unkn. coll. s.n. (paratype, PRUM; paratype, RET 353-9, fragment.).

RET: SOUTH AFRICA: GAUTENG—City of Tshwane - Pretoria, Centurion [25.8520° S/ 28.1896° E, 1430 m], 21.i.2016 Glen van Niekerk s.n. [mushroomobserver #228424] (RET 728-3, nrITS and nrLSU seq'd.); Univ. of Pretoria campus, L. C. de Villiers sports grounds [25°45'10" S/ 28º14'46" E, 1365 m], 15.ii.1989 unkn. coll. s.n. (paratype, (PRUM; paratype, RET 353-9, fragment).

discussion

protolog summary: The authors distinguish A. foetidissima from A. roseolescens by basidiome color and bruising reaction as well as what they believe to be larger spore size of A. foetidissima. However, they present a counter argument leaving the issue of spore size difference somewhat in question. [Note: Their unusual method of reporting spore size range makes the data difficult to use, as they recognize.—ed.]

The authors report that they could not find anyone familiar with the areas in which the two species were collected who knew of any recent sighting or collection of A. roseolescens.

Amanita praeclara is distinguished from the present species based on its color and bruising reactions and its lack of clamp connections in the universal veil. [Note: this places it outside of stirps Nauseosa.—ed.]

Amanita nauseosa and A. manicata are also mentioned as similar taxa.

citations

—R. E. Tulloss

editors

RET

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Spore data for collections
provisionally identified as: Amanita foetidissima D. A. Reid & Eicker

Spore data sets and their composite

Each spore data set is intended to comprise a set of measurements from a single specimen made by a single observer; and explanations prepared for this site talk about specimen-observer pairs associated with each data set. Combining more data into a single data set is non-optimal because it obscures observer differences (which may be valuable for instructional purposes, for example) and may obscure instances in which a single collection inadvertently contains a mixture of taxa.

basidiospore definition

Spore Measurements by Collection

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name	Amanita foetidissima
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