Limacella illinita var. rubescens - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
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name Limacella illinita var. rubescens
name status nomen acceptum
author H. V. Sm.
english name "Blushing Slimy Stem"
cap The cap of L. illinita var. rubescens is 25 - 70 mm wide, white, convex to companulate or broadly umbonate, and very viscid.  Its white flesh is said to be rather fragile.
gills The gills are narrowly adnexed, close to subdistant, and white.  Nothing is known of the short gills.
stem The solid stem of var. rubescens is 60 - 105 × 6 - 8 mm, white in the upper part, and becoming red or vinaceous or pinkish vinaceous in the lower part.  The ring was simply described as "glutinous'"  The slime on the stem is said to "often" become "maroon red."
odor/taste This odorless mushroom is described as having a taste that its author felt separated it from the taxon to which she applied the name L. illinita in North America: The slime is slightly bitter, and the flesh is described as bitterish and like ground grain (meal).
spores The author provided no microscopic data taken specifically from this mushroom.
discussion The type collection of this taxon came from Québec, Canada, where it was found in Spruce-Balsam Fir forest.  Without any detail, the author says that it was also collected in the U.S. state of New York.  A review of the type collection is necessary to improve our understanding of this species.

The species has been claimed from Europe by Neville and Poumarat (2004: 245-248), who published a description and illustrations of European material they assigned to this taxon.  They did not review the type.  Their measurements of 20 spores from European material suggest that its spores are almost perfectly globose on average and smaller than described for L. illinita sensu H. V. Smith; in the protolog of var. rubescens, it is said to have spores that are of the same form as in L. illinita sensu H. V. Smith.  Smith maintained that there was a distinctive bitterness in the taste of this variety; this is not mentioned for the European material.  Smith found no distinctive odor in the present entity, while Neville and Poumarat report an odor of rancid meal ("farine rance") in their mushroom.  The latter authors say that the cap of their material is grayish white when the staining of the slime is discounted—like the cap of the true L. illinita of Europe; this differs from the reported color of the present fungus.  At the moment, the editor is inclined to think the present taxon is restricted to the Americas.
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