Amanita ravenelii - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
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name Amanita ravenelii
name status nomen acceptum
author (Berk. & M. A. Curtis) Sacc.
english name "Ravenel's Lepidella"
images
  • Amanita raveneliiAmanita ravenelii

    1. Amanita ravenelii, West Virginia, U.S.A.

  • Amanita raveneliiAmanita ravenelii

    2. Amanita ravenelii, eastern U.S.A.

  • Amanita raveneliiAmanita ravenelii

    3. Amanita ravenelii, West Virginia, U.S.A.

  • Amanita raveneliiAmanita ravenelii

    4. Amanita ravenelii, Weems, Lancaster Co., Virginia, U.S.A.

  • A. ravenelii, Knoxville, Knox Co., TNA. ravenelii, Knoxville, Knox Co., TN

    5. Amanita ravenelii, Knoxville, Knox Co., Tennessee.

  • A. ravenelii, Hawn St. Pk., Ste. Genevieve Co., MO, USA.A. ravenelii, Hawn St. Pk., Ste. Genevieve Co., MO, USA.

    6. Amanita ravenelii, ('the face on Mars') pileal wart through 10× hand lens, Hawn St. Pk., Ste. Genevieve Co., Missouri, U.S.A.

  • A. ravenelii, Hawn St. Pk., Ste. Genevieve Co., MO, USA.A. ravenelii, Hawn St. Pk., Ste. Genevieve Co., MO, USA.

    7. Amanita ravenelii, uncommon narrow bulb falsely suggesting A. rhopalopus as noted by Bas (1969), Transylvania Co., NC, USA.



  • 8. Amanita ravenelii, small warts and lower, hyphal layer of universal veil from giant, water-soaked specimen, found by Thea Chesney during NAMA 2015, North Carolina, U.S.A.

    • intro Amanita ravenelii is a striking, moderately common species of the southeastern U.S.  As Dr. Bas noted in his monograph on section Lepidella, this species can be confused with A. rhopalopus when it has a narrow (sometimes even dog-legged) bulb on the stem.  However, examination of the base of the warts (often, even without a hand lens) will show that the warts rest on a base of pallid, radially fibrillose material.  In the range of the present species, this character is distinctive and can be used for field identification.
    cap The cap of Amanita ravenelii is 90 - 199 (-297) mm wide, white atdrying, globose at first, finally planoconvex.  The cap context is white, sometimes slowly pale sordid tannish when cut or bruised, 11 - 19.5 (-35±) mm thick above the stipe, thinning evenly to the margin.  The cap margin is nonstriate, slightly incurved at first, appendiculate with relatively large submembranous material in fragments up to 20 mm long or as 2 - 3 mm rim around pileus margin; the volva appears on the cap as warts, subpyramidal to truncate-pyramidal over disc, near mid-radius as concentric rings of floccose scales, becoming progressively finer toward margin, with sides of warts radially fibrillose to matted-fibrillose (photos 2, 4, and 6, above).  The adnate warts are concolorous at first and become tan, then pale red-brown, then red-brown, and finally brown.
    gills

    The gills of this species are free to narrowly adnate without a decurrent line on the stipe, crowded, pale yellowish white to yellowish cream in mass, pale yellowish white to cream in side view, 10.5 - 18 mm broad, infrequently forking in some specimens, with edge finely pulverulent and white (browning on edge with age); the short gills are rounded truncate to subtruncate to subattenuate to attenuate, of diverse lengths, and plentiful.

    stem The stipe is 82 - 125 (-194) × 15 - 27 (-41) mm, whitish, becoming yellowish with age or sometimes intensely rusty-red-brown, becoming faint pinkish in longitudinal crevices, cylindric or narrowing downward, flaring at apex, sometimes slightly flattened, floccose-flocculose in about upper third of stipe, longitudinally striate below, sometimes fibrillose below, sometimes bearing submembranous to subfelted bands of greatly varying widths in lower two-thirds (down to the top of the bulb).  The stipe's bulb is deeply radicating, often showing longitudinal splitting, often of irregular form, sometimes onion-shaped, sometimes doglegged, 66 - 204 × 32 - 63 mm, often with rusty stains; its context is solid, white, becoming rusty brown very slowly on cut surfaces, with larva tunnels concolorous to pale yellowish to rusty brown.  The annulus is submembranous to subfelted to compressed-flocculose at first, with large rectangular warts on the underside at the edge; it eventually falls away in large subfelted chunks.  The volva is arranged in obscure partial rings (widely separated) on the upper half of the stipe's bulb and is floccose but thin at first, about the same color as the bulb.  The bulb surface sometimes splits into recurved scales tipped with universal veil material.
    spores

    The spores measure (7.0-) 8.0 - 11.9 (-14.0) × (4.6-) 5.2 - 7.7 (-8.5) µm and are ellipsoid to elongate (rarely broadly ellipsoid or cylindric) and amyloid.  Clamps are present on bases of basidia.

    discussion Odor is lacking at first, then of “chlorine” or "old ham" (decaying protein) type (but not too unpleasant).  Taste has not been recorded.

    This species occurs in deciduous or mixed deciduous-conifer forest in association with trees including oak and/or pine, and sometimes also including beech and/or hickory.  The species' range includes the region between New Jersey, Illinois, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Missouri, but is probably more extensive.

    Bas' stirps Ravenelii includes the present species as well as these others: A. crassa Bas (Argentina), A. pyramidifera D. A. Reid (Australia), and A. strobilacea (Cooke) Sacc. (Australia). Other taxa from Australia have been claimed to belong with this group.—R. E. Tulloss
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