Amanita olivacea - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
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name Amanita olivacea
name status nomen acceptum
author Beeli
english name "Olivaceous Amidella"
intro

The following description is based on Beeli (1935) and Gilbert (1941).

cap The cap is 120 - 180 mm wide, brown-olive to sordid olive, at first convex, later concave, with center sometimes appearing frosted-whitish, with a nonappendiculate margin, nonstriate at first, more or less distinctly crenate-striate with age. The flesh is whitish. The volva is present as several rather large patches, and is rather thick, cream colored, and appearing felted (use 10x lens).

The cap of Amanita olivacea is 40 - 50 mm wide, pale, convex, with a barely striate margin.  The cap is covered with small, olivaceous, powdery, squamules that are easily removed.  The flesh is firm.
gills The gills are free to nearly free to narrowly adnate with a decurrent tooth, moderately distant to nearly distant in age, white, entire, with flocculose edges.  The short gills are not described.
stem The stem is 150 - 200 × 20 - 25 mm, cream, somewhat brownish in older specimens,  somewhat slippery, and nearly cylindric.  The bulb is subglobose and up to 45 mm wide.  The flesh is rather firm.  The ring is superior to submedian, membranous, skirt-like, and persistent.  The limbate volva is thick, robust, white on both surfaces, with surface layers relatively easily separated mechanically in dried material.

The gills are free, somewhat rounded near the stem, 6 mm broad, and slightly yellow (distinctly pinkish in Madame Goossens' watercolors).

Its stem is 90 - 100 × 6 - 8 mm, cylindrical, stuffed, pale, with slight squamules similar to those on the cap.  The flesh is white. The ring is brownish and ephemeral.  The volva is membranous and very thick . The volval sac is somewhat pointed below, as shown in Madame Goossens watercolors.
odor/taste The odor is lacking in fresh material but like honey in dried material.  The taste is sweet.
spores According to the spore drawings of Gilbert (1940 & 1941), spores of the present species measure 8.0 - 9.8 × 4.2 - 5.5 μm and are elongate to cylindric and amyloid.  If the species is correctly placed in sect. Amidella, basidia probably lack clamps at their bases.
discussion The present species was originally described from the Republic of Congo where it occurred in dry forests.

The powdery inner layer of the otherwise robust volval sac, the easily disintegrating ring, the striate margin of the cap, and the elongate spores are all consistent with placement of the present species in section Amidella.  The colored lamellae are unusual in this section.  The absence of a color change of the flesh when the stem is cut should be checked on fresh material especially on material in which the stipe is still expanding.—R. E. Tulloss
brief editors RET

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