Amanita bingensis - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
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name Amanita bingensis
name status nomen acceptum
author (Beeli) R. Heim
english name "African Orange-Volva Amanita"
intro This description is based on that of Beeli (1935), illustrations appearing in Gilbert's "Amanitaceae" (1940-41), and RET's examination of the type.
cap The cap of A. bingensis is 40 - 50 mm wide, fleshy and firm over the stem, but merely a membrane in the outer third of the cap radius.  Its margin is striate for at least one third of the cap radius.  It is pale yellow and covered with orange, pulverulent remnants of the volva.  These are most densely placed over the center.  Its context is white.
gills The gills are subfree, rounded at the cap margin, white, and edged with yellow pulverulence.  In examining the remains of the type, one short gill was found; it was subtruncate.
stem The stipe is 70 - 75 × 5 - 7 mm, yellow to yellow-orange and cylindric, with a white bulbous (ellipsoid) base about 18 × 11 mm and largely white; its context is white and hollow. The stipe is exannulate and decorated in the lower portion with orange remains of the pulverulent volva organized in one to three ridges around the bulb above its broadest part.
odor/taste The taste is said to be mild. The odor is not recorded.
spores Measuring four, properly oriented, spores from the drawings of E.-J. Gilbert (1940) yields the very approximate dimensions of 6.5 - 8 × 5 - 6.5 µm (broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid). Gilbert reported the spores to be inamyloid. In RET's examination of the type, he found remaining, undamaged spores to be (5.5-) 5.7 - 6.9 (-7.0) × (4.4-) 4.5 - 5.3 (-5.6) µm.  Clamps are probably not present at bases of basidia.
discussion Amanita bingensis occurs scattered in dry tropical forest.

This species, described originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, is known only from Central Africa.  A recent collection from São Tomé e Príncipe (temporarily called "A. sp-DED-7271" may be assignable to the present species.

A somewhat similar, but more robust and redder entity has been collected in Zambia (A. sp-Arora-00-328) and is depicted in the picturebook/checklist for subsaharan Africa (here).—R. E. Tulloss
brief editors RET

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