Amanita fuscobrunnea - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
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name Amanita fuscobrunnea
name status nomen acceptum
author A. E. Wood
english name "Dark Moth Amanita"
intro

The following is largely based on the original description (Wood 1997).

cap

The cap of Amanita fuscobrunnea is up to 35 mm wide, convex, smooth, dry, gray, with a nonstriate margin.  The volva is present as prominent, dark brown pyramidal warts, smaller towards the margin, and may be reduced at the margin to flat scales.

gills

The gills are free, thin, crowded, white, and marginate with a thin pale brown edge.  The short gills are present in at least one series.

stem

The stem is up to 50 × 6 mm, narrowing upward, white, covered with dark brown, powdery granules all over, and marked with distinct concentric dark zones on its lower part and on the top of the bulb.  The ring is membranous, broadly flaring, dull gray-brown, with a dark brown margin.  The bulb is small and ellipsoid.

spores

The spores measure (5.7-) 6.6 - 7.5 × 5.4 - 6.6 µm and are subglobose to broadly ellipsoid and amyloid.  Clamps are absent at bases of basidia.

discussion

Wood describes the mushroom as occurring in sclerophyll forests from the state of New South Wales, Australia.  A sclerophyll forest in the Australian bush is a forest of hard-leaved plants including Eucalyptus in the overstory (wikipedia).  This species is known only from the type collection.

The reader may wish to compare the present species with A. innatifibrilla Zhu L. Yang nom. prov. and the forms of A. pilosella Corner & Bas.  The latter and other species described by Corner & Bas share the characteristic of dark volval material on much of the stem and relatively small spore size.  We selected the two species listed above as closest matches to A. fuscobrunnea because of spore size, spore shape, habit, and pigmentation.  It is interesting that many of the small species of section Validae with dark volva are to be found in eastern and southeastern Asia and the Indian subcontinent, the islands of Oceania, Australia, and sub-Saharan Africa.  It would be very interesting to see an investigation of a possible Gondwanan origin for this group within section Validae. —R. E. Tulloss and L. Possiel

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