Amanita dolichopus - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
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name Amanita dolichopus
name status nomen provisorum
author Tulloss
synonyms
"Long-legged Amidella"
images
  • Amanita dolichopus, ??, U.S.A.Amanita dolichopus, ??, U.S.A.

    1. Amanita dolichopus, ??, U.S.A.

  • Amanita dolichopus, old AT&T prop., Hopewell Twp., Mercer Co., New Jersey, U.S.A.Amanita dolichopus, old AT&T prop., Hopewell Twp., Mercer Co., New Jersey, U.S.A.

    2. Amanita dolichopus, old AT&T prop., Hopewell Twp., Mercer Co., New Jersey, U.S.A.

    • cap The cap of Amanita dolichopus is 26 - 88 mm wide and ranges from roughly hemispheric to broadly bell-shaped to plano-convex to plane.  Sometimes a slight umbo is present or the cap may be slightly depressed in the center.  The cap is white to whitish and becomes pale tan to tannish yellow to pale pinkish buff or pinkish brown or brick with age; it is darkest in the center and sometimes may seem slightly water-soaked;  In very fresh material, the surface and flesh bruise pinkish when scratched.  The cap is slightly viscid when moist and shiny when dry.  The margin is nonstriate to short striate and slightly appendiculate at first with very small, white flocculence (use 10× lens) that becomes red-brown on exposure.  The volva remains on the cap can take on several forms:
    • It can be absent.
    • Occasionally, it can be present as one large patch which becomes pinkish-brown with age.
    • It can be present as multiple thin, cracked, membranous to fibrous patches which become finer, fibrillose scales toward the cap's margin (sometimes suggesting cuneiform characters); these patches and scales are white at first and become pinkish-brownish buff to red-brown with age.
    gills The gills of Amanita dolichopus are free or occasionally attached to the stem by a line or tooth or narrowly adnate.  They are moderately crowded, usually rather narrow, white to whitish to cream in side view, appearing pinkish cream in mass, and often bruise pinkish with exposed interior of gills eventually reddish-brown and drying brown.  The gill may fork occasionally and have minutely flocculose edges.  The short gills are squarely cut off or nearly so or are cut off obliquely; they are present in several ranks and, occasionally, are absent for as much as one quarter of the pileus circumference.
    stem The ringless, roughly cylindric stem measures (32-) 50 - 160 × (2-) 5 - 15 mm. It is white, browns from handling, and becomes pinkish brown as it ages.  The upper part of the stem is often floccose-mealy in young material; this decoration is white at first and then becomes red-brown.  The membranous to leathery, sack-like volva is usually tubular at maturity; it is whitish to grayish with brown or red-brown stains or with a brown margin.  The sack is moderately thick, lobed, and often completely buried in the soil.  The sack is (16-) 18 - 81 mm high.  There is a small to somewhat thickened internal limb at a point about one-quarter to one-half of the distance from the stem base to the top of the sack.
    odor/taste Amanita dolichopus may have a pleasantly fungoid smell when fresh or have only a faint odor or none at all.  In Bas' field notes on a specimen of this species, He reported the odor as faintly soapy at first and later unpleasant.  This mushroom has an indistinct taste according to the same set of notes.
    spores The spores of this species measure (7.0-) 8.8 - 12.5 (-24) × (4.0) 4.9 - 6.2 (-10.0) μm and are amyloid and ellipsoid to elongate to cylindric (rarely bacilliform).  No clamps are found at bases of basidia.
    discussion Amanita dolichopus has been found in most Northeastern states of the U.S., from Maine to Virginia and west to West Virginia and Tennessee.  It has been found in a variety of soils with one or more of the following: pines (including Eastern White Pine and Pitch Pine), oaks (including Northern Red Oak), American Beech, and Shagbark Hickory.

    This slender species often has a stem with a length at least 10 times its width.  The tubular volva will often serve to distinguish this species from A. pseudovolvata; the smaller size of A. dolichopus and the brick staining it develops will often distinguish it from A. whetstoneae.  Nevertheless, field determination of species of Amanita section Amidella are notoriously prone to error.  A check of spore size and shape and examination of the lamella trama is recommended for achieveing an accurate determination.—R. E. Tulloss
    brief editors RET

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