| Amanita
muscaria (L. : Fr.) Lam. var.
muscaria "Euro-Asian Fly Agaric"
Technical description not yet available. BRIEF DESCRIPTION: Amanita muscaria is the common, bright red fly agaric of northern Europe and Asia. Its orange-red to scarlet cap is 90 - 145 mm wide. The volva is distributed over the cap as white or yellow warts. The gills are free to narrowly adnate, crowded to subcrowded, and white or whitish both in mass and in side view. The short gills are truncate. The stipe is 60 - 210 x 8 - 22 mm and has a skirt-like annulus and notable bulb of rather variable shape (up to 46 x 45 mm). Rings of volval material commonly encircle the top of the bulb and the base of the stipe. The spores measure (7.4-) 8.5 - 11.5 (-13.1) x (5.6-) 6.5 - 8.5 (-9.8) µm and are broadly ellipsoid (infrequently subglobose or elongate) and inamyloid. Clamps are very common at bases of basidia. Because yellow warts are
not uncommon in the type variety, microscopic characters
must be used to distinguish it from the American Amanita muscaria subsp. flavivolvata
Singer. The
species is toxic and is well-known for its use by shamans
of Other apparently closely related taxa include A.
breckonii
Ammirati & Thiers, A.
gioiosa Curreli,
A.
heterochroma
Curreli, the varieties of the present species, and A.
regalis (Fr.)
Michael. All of these species have easily-found clamps at bases of
the basidia. A number of them are also quite unusual in Amanita in
that The species is associated primarily with Birch and diverse conifers in Eurasia, but has been found in mixed forest with other deciduous trees, in forests of pure Tilia (in Norway), with dwarf willow (Salix repens) on the Island of Terschelling (Prov. Friesland, the Netherlands, see photo above at right), in Empetrum-Salix heath at 71 ° lat. in Norway (see photo above at left), and adapted to living with eucalypts in Australia, Argentina, etc.. and adapted to living with Nothofagus in New Zealand. In Australia and New Zealand, the species is considered invasive. -- R. E. Tulloss Photos: R. E. Tulloss (first two rows above text,
Scotland) [ Return to Section Amanita page. ] [ Return to Amanita Studies home. ] Last changed 14 September 2007. |
northern cultures. Amanita muscaria occurs
throughout Europe and northern Asia (famously in Siberia) and in
western Alaska. It is one of the amanitas that is most
easily (and frequently) introduced with imported trees --
e.g., in pine and eucalypt plantations. It
appears to be able to take on many genera of plants as
ectomycorrhizal symbionts.
tissues from them will rapidly and robustly produce a vegetative
culture.