Amanita groenlandica - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
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name Amanita groenlandica
name status nomen acceptum
author Bas ex Knudsen & Borgen
english name "Greenland Ringless Amanita"
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  • Amanita groenlandica, Greenland.Amanita groenlandica, Greenland.

    1. Amanita groenlandica, Greenland.

  • Amanita groenlandica, Greenland.Amanita groenlandica, Greenland.

    2. Amanita groenlandica, Greenland.

  • cap

    The cap of A.groenlandica is (30-) 50 - 90 (-120) mm wide, hemispheric, expanding to convex and broadly umbonate, finally applanate with or without a low umbo, slightly viscid when young, becoming shiny when dry, with a weakly sulcate margin (10 - 20% or the radius). The cap coloring ranges from pale straw to straw, especially near the margin or when young to grayish yellow, often darkest over disc. The flesh is white, pale brown under the pileipellis, and rather soft. The volva is present as one or a few broad patches or as numerous small flat scale-like patches, whitish to pale grayish brown to gray.

    gills

    The gills are free, white then very pale cream, distally slightly ventricose. Short gills are present.

    stem

    The stem is 40 - 150 × 8 - 20 mm (up to 33 mm at base), narrowing upward rather unmarkedly, ground color whitish with floccose girdles ranging from dirty gray brown to pale brown, becoming darker when buised, exannulate. The volva is fragile and easily disrupted, generally whitish at base and grayish above, with a grayish interior surface paler than the exterior; it dries darker than when fresh, sometimes with a thin outer brown layer.

    spores

    The spores measure (7.8-) 9.2 - 12.5 (-23.0) × (7.8-) 8.2 - 11.5 (-16.0) µm and are inamyloid and globose to subglobose to broadly ellipsoid (rarely ellipsoid). Clamps are not observed at bases of basidia.

    discussion

    Amanita groenlandica was originally described from Greenland where it occurs with birch and willows in subarctic habitat. It has now been found from Alaska to Scandinavia and is probably circumpolar in distribution.

    For comparison, see A. reidiana Contu nom. inval., A. morteniiKnudsen & Borgen, and A. submembranacea (Bon) Gröger (see also the taxa cited on the latter page).—R. E. Tulloss

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