| Amanita
rubescens var. alba
Coker "American White Blusher"
Go to technical description. (t.b.d.) BRIEF DESCRIPTION: The cap of Amanita rubescens var. alba is 95 - 120 mm wide, white to cream, with pinkish or pale brick red tints, staining red brown, rounded to broadly campanulate to plano-convex, viscid when wet, tacky to dull to subshiny to shiny when dry, with a nonstriate and downcurved margin, sometimes appendiculate with shreds of the membranous ring and sometimes faintly striate. The volva is absent or present as pale yellow at first, then cream, irregularly polygonal loose sub-pyramidal warts, radially fibrillose. The flesh is 9 - 11.5 mm thick over the stem, thinning evenly towards the margin, white, staining brick red in the center or pinkish. The gills are free to narrowly adnate, rather close to subcrowded to crowded, white to pale cream, staining red or brownish or light ochraceous, 3.5 - 8 mm broad, sometimes forking, with or without a decurrent line on the stem. The short gills are rounded subtruncate to truncate to subattenuate to attenuate. The stem is 60 - 137 × 16 - 19 mm, whitish, staining red or reddish brown, narrowing upward, flaring at the top, longitudinally striate and finely pulverulent, somewhat satiny above the ring. The bulb is 27 - 35 × 22 - 31 mm, ovoid to broadly fusiform, clavate, with the base of the bulb surrounded by white mycelium in duff. The ring is superior, usually white above and below, infrequently pale yellow above, pale sulfur yellow below, thin, fragile, membranous, skirt-like, sometimes shredding and collapsing on the stem, striate and paler above, darker yellow and floccose-fibrillose below. The volva is absent or present as loose patches easily left in the soil, whitish at first, staining brick red, submembranous, subfloccose to minutely warty on the surface or as light lines of deep red-brown color on the upper bulb. The flesh is white, stuffed to solid, and staining as in the cap. The spores measure (6.5-) 7.0 - 9.8 (-10.5) x (4.5-) 5.0 - 7.0 (-8.5) µm and are broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid (rarely subglobose or elongate) and amyloid. Clamps are not observed at bases of basidia. This species was originally described from North Carolina and is not rare in the Atlantic Coastal Plain and in oak and pine forests east of the Mississippi River with a known northern limit in New York and Connecticut and a known southern limit in South Carolina. The partial veil is sometimes yellow on the underside only as is also the case with A. rubescens sensu eastern North American authors. This suggests that as in the case of the latter taxon, the universal veil in A. rubescens var. alba may sometimes be yellow during early development of the fruit body. For comparison with other rubescent taxa see A. brunneolocularis Tulloss, Ovrebo & Halling, A. novinupta Tulloss & J. Lindgr., A. orsonii A. Kumar & T. N. Lakh., A. rubescens (Pers.:Fr.) Pers.; and A. rubescens var. congolensis Beeli. For distinguishing between rubescent taxa in section Validae, refer to the Key of rubescent taxa in Amanita section Validae. -- R. E. Tulloss and L. Possiel Photos: R. E. Tulloss (top and bottom, New Jersey; second row, South Carolina [2]). Return to Section Validae page. Last changed 25 July 2006. |
