Amanita herrerae - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
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name Amanita herrerae
name status nomen acceptum
author Aroche
cap The cap of Amanita herrerae is 25 - 60 mm wide, hemispherical to convex, and has a slight umbo in the center.  It is white to marble-alabaster; and, in the center, it may be grayish-brown to grayish with brownish-yellow tones.  Sometimes, the entire cap of A. herrerae may have colors that range from faint blonde tints to brownish-gray to occasionally yellow-ochre, or grayish yellow.  The cap may be slightly sticky-hygrophanous to slimy or silky.  It may appear to be covered with fine fibers, but lacks colored radial fibrils.  It bears minute yellow particles or, in rare cases, has been known to ooze drops of colorless to yellow fluid.  The edge of the cap is curved inward or curved downward, is slightly appendiculate, and is not striate.  The cap flesh is white and unchanging.  Volval remnants can be absent or present.  The skin of the cap peels easily.
gills The gills of Amanita herrerae are narrowly adnate to free or subdistant.  They are cream to whitish with edges that are undecorated or are decorated with minute bits of white, removable material.  The lamellulae have not been described.
stem The stem measures 80 - 100 × 5 - 12 mm. It is cream or the same color as the cap; it becomes yellow to the touch, then light brown.  The stem narrows upward.  It can be covered with a frost-like dust or fine fibers or scaly bran-like particles or be smooth and without any hairs or particles.  The bulb is nearly globose to ovoid, and occasionally flattened on top inside the volal limbs.  The stem's flesh is white and unchanging on exposure except for sometimes being slightly grayish-brown in the bulb. The stem is hollow with cottony stuffing  The subapical, skirt-like ring has a soft, pliable texture; it is persistent, fragile, skirt-like, and light cream, with an upper surface that is covered with a frost-like dust or is radially striate, and with a lower surface that is smooth, irregularly covered with tufts of small hairs that rub off.  The stem turns yellow to the touch and releases a barely perceptible liquid.  The stem bears a limbate volva with the free limbs being having a height of about half the bulb's length.  The volva can have two to four limbs. The outside of the volva is powdery, white, and (at times) has brownish-gray or alabaster tints on the margin.
odor/taste The Odor is agreeable—like paraffin mixed with chlorine.  The taste was not recorded.

As a precaution, this species should be considered deadly POISONOUS.
spores The spores of Amanita herrerae are (8.8-) 9.0 - 11.0 (-11.5) × 6.5 - 8.9 (-9.0) μm, amyloid, and broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid.  Clamps are probably absent from the bases of basidia.
discussion Amanita herrerae has been found only in the state of Hildalgo, Mexico at 1550 m elevation, in a cloud forest region at the edge of pastureland with Oak trees.

The present species was placed in section Amidella by its author; however, it seems to be better placed in sect. Phalloideae at the moment.  In addition, the yellowing of the fruiting body suggests that at least some of the original material on which the taxon was based were suffering from the "yellowing syndrome" (see discussion on the taxon page of A. subsolitaria.
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