Amanita pudica - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
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name Amanita pudica
name status nomen acceptum
author (Beeli) E.-J. Gilbert
english name "African Rose Ringless Amanita"
images
  • Amanita pudica, east-central Africa.Amanita pudica, east-central Africa.

    1. Amanita pudica, east-central Africa.

  • Amanita pudica, east-central Africa.Amanita pudica, east-central Africa.

    2. Amanita pudica, east-central Africa.



  • 3. Amanita pudica, ca. Lubumbashi (formerly Elisabethville), D. R. Congo.

    • intro The following is based on the original description of this species and subsequent publications by Gilbert (1941a) and Walleyn (1996).
    cap The cap of A. pudica is usually free of volval remnants, 50 - 80 mm wide, uniformly pink, convex at first becoming planar; its center becomes depressed.  The margin is finely striate.  The flesh is white.
    gills The gills are reported as free and white and are probably irregularly and finely decorated on the margin.
    stem The stem measures 70 - 80 × 7 - 9 mm, white, cylindric, smooth, exannulate, and undecorated. The volva is thick and membranous; and the brown exterior surface is cracked to show the white interior.
    odor/taste The odor and taste for this species have not been reported.
    spores According to Walleyn (1996), the spores measure (7.0-) 8.2 - 10.9 (-11.3) × (4.9-) 5.5 - 7.9 µm and are ellipsoid for the most part and inamyloid.  He also reported that clamps were present on some basidia.
    discussion The species was originally described from Congo and occurs in central Africa.

    In Walleyn's revision of this species he illustrates and describes the fact that the basidiome develops off-center (upward) in the "button" stage of the mushroom.  This means that the species cannot be placed in section Vaginatae as had been assumed previously.  It must be placed in section Amanita—in which it is morphologically unique in the current state of knowledge.  Moreover, he clarified that the spores are inamyloid and added that clamps were to be found on the basidia and in other tissues.

    This is surely one of the most beautifully and interestingly colored of all species of the genus.—R. E. Tulloss
    brief editors RET

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