Amanita fibrillopes - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
[print] [map]
name Amanita fibrillopes
name status nomen acceptum
author O. K. Mill.
english name "Bush Elf Amanita"
images


  • 1. Amanita fibrillopes, Western Australia, Australia.


  • 2. Amanita fibrillopes, Western Australia, Australia.


  • 3. Amanita fibrillopes, Western Australia, Australia.



  • 4. Amanita fibrillopes, Western Australia, Australia.

    • intro

    The following is based on Miller (1992).

    cap

    The cap of Amanita fibrillopes is 32 - 34 mm wide, buff, darkening to light brown in age, convex, dry, with a nonstriate margin. The cap is densely covered with light brown, often pointed warts. In the type, the cuticle broke up into an areolate surface with a wart in the center of each areola.  The warts are said to be composed of a pointed, darker upper portion that sits on a pale fibrillose base. Further, the upper part of the wart is described as having a "cuticle."

    gills

    Gills are adnate, close, thick, white, becoming light brownish with age. The margin of the gills is densely coated at first with orange floccules, possibly representing an incoherent ring. [Note: Miller's illustration shows that in some fruiting bodies the partially opened caps do have an incoherent ring that is breaking up into a form rather like the spokes of a wheel. It is not possible from the original description to tell if this ring-like tissue is distinct from the universal veil material on the stem or part of it.] The short gills are infrequent or absent.

    stem

    Its stem is 22 - 32 × 5 - 10 mm, dry, with rows of tufted, grayish brown fibrils, densely formed over the entire surface.  The basal bulb is marginate to nonmarginate, upper surface with orange-pink tint in some young material. [Ed. note: Probably the original color of the volva before exposure.] [Note: Miller's photographs show several bulbs with what appear to be distinctly limbate volval remnants.]

    spores

    The spores measure 9 - 12 (-13) × 6 - 7 (-8.4) µm and are ellipsoid to elongate, infrequently cylindric and inamyloid. Clamps are absent at bases of basidia. The contents of spores appear yellow in Melzer's solution.

    discussion

    Originally described from the state of Western Australian growing in the sandy soil of a forest road. Known only from the type locality.  No associated plants are recorded.

    Miller emphasizes that the basidiospores are short and compact. This may have something to do with their growing in a roadway.

    Photographs of the original material suggest it is all rather young; and connection of gills to stem may not be adnate in more mature material.

    It would be interesting to know the colors of the limbus internus of the volva that can be observed if a "button" of this species is sectioned. Given the color of the gill edges and the color reported on the young bulb, one might guess that the limbus internus, at least, if not the entire volva, is originally orange or orangish but quickly darkens on exposure. If this guess were confirmed the species might be related to the bright colored taxa with powdery or absent rings and which lack clamps. On the other hand, the reference to a cuticle on the cap's volval warts and the apparent presence of a limbate volva at the base of the stem suggests a relationship with the odd species of section Amanita that can be found in Australia, Chile, and Andean Argentina which sometimes are found with coherent volva limbs suggesting a species of section Vaginatae.—R. E. Tulloss

    brief editors RET

    [top]