| Amanita nehuta G. S. Ridl. "Maori Dust Amanita" :: Technical description (t.b.d.) BRIEF DESCRIPTION: The following description is based on Ridley (1991). The cap of Amanita nehuta is 25 - 65 mm wide, plano-convex to plano-depressed, buff, non-viscid, with a striate margin. The pale greyish sepia to fuscous volval remnants are pulverulent on the center raised into wart-like peaksor warts or radial ridges. The volval remains long attached to the cap. The flesh is white, with a very pale area under the skin in the center. Gills are crowded, free, 6 - 7 mm wide, white to pale buff; the short gills are subtruncate. Its stem is 20 - 75 × 4 - 11 mm, hollow, exannulate, with a smooth to subfloccose upper stem and smooth lower stem. The surface is white, very pale buff, or very pale grayish sepia. The basal bulb is clavate to bulbous, 10 - 16 mm in diameter. The base has a rim or band of powdery volva, the same color as on the cap. The stem has no ring. The flesh is white, sometimes streaked with pale gray or buff. The spores measure 6.5 - 9 × 5.5 - 8 (-8.5) µm and are subglobose to broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid and inamyloid. Spores from the paratype measured by RET produced the following: 6.5 - 7.6 (-8.4) × 5.6 - 6.7 µm. Clamps are absent at the bases of the basidia. Originally described from Wellington, New Zealand, associated with many types of Nothofagus (Southern Beech), leptospermum, and kunzea. Known from both North and South islands of New Zealand. Ridley points out the similarity of A. nehuta to A. farinosa Schwein., A. obsita Corner & Bas, and A. subvaginata (Cleland & Cheel.) E.-J. Gilbert, A. xerocybe Bas. All these species appear to have a cap surface that gelatinized late in development so that the volva remains intimately connected to the cap skin. For this reason, the cap often remains powdery looking well into maturity. A character not mentions in Ridley's description
but observed by me in several of his cited collections is the fact
that the inflated cells of the volva in this species are at least
sometimes warted. A character otherwise unknown in the genus
Amanita. Return to Section Amanita page. Last changed 26 May 2006 |