Amanita pulverotecta - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
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name Amanita pulverotecta
name status nomen acceptum
author Bas
english name "Buff Powdered Amanita"
cap This description is taken from the original description (Bas, 1982). The cap of A. pulverotecta is 150 mm wide, plano-convex, dry, with a sulcate-striate margin (15 - 25% of the radius). The cap is whitish but densely sprinkled with pale buff powdery remnants of the volva.
gills The gills are just touching the apex of the stem, moderately crowded, and whitish with a yellowish buff tinge.
stem The stem is 175 mm long, broadening downwards, and exannulate.  It has a somewhat elongated, subventricose bulb at its base.  The flesh is white, soft, and brittle.  The volva is completely pulverulent.
odor/taste The odor and taste of this mushroom were not recorded.
spores The spores measure (10.6-) 10.9 × 12.8 (-14.8) × 5.7 - 7.4 µm and are inamyloid and ellipsoid to elongate to elongate-ovoid (infrequently cylindric).  Clamps are absent at bases of basidia.
discussion This species was originally described from Malawi.  The only habitat information recorded is the species' occurrence at about 1,000 m elev.

This species is unusual in section Amanita because of its lacking a true skin on the cap.  The volva remains connected to the cap because there is no gelatinized region in which hyphae connecting the volva to the cap could be severed—as would commonly occur in the majority of amanitas.  The present species is separated from A. farinosa Schwein. (in which gelatinization is considerably delayed) and related taxa by lack of a distinct skin on the cap and by more elongated spores, among other characters.—R. E. Tulloss
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