Limacella kauffmanii - Amanitaceae.org - Taxonomy and Morphology of Amanita and Limacella
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name Limacella kauffmanii
name status nomen acceptum
author H. V. Sm.
english name "Kauffman's Slimy Stem"
intro The following is based on the original description by H. V. Smith (1945 ).
cap The cap of A. kauffmanii is about 20–75 mm wide, Bay Brown with a broad Raw Sienna margin when young, with the margin fading to Antimony Yellow, and with the surface below the slimy layer somewhat streaked with stripes of lighter and darker yellowish brown.  The cap is broadly ovoid at first and becomes obtuse; finally it expands and exhibits a broad low umbo.  Its flesh is white or pallid, cottony, and somewhat watery at first.  The cap bears a thick layer of pale yellow slime.
gills According to its author, the gills appear free, but are connected to the stem by a "narrow strip" and have their ends attached to a "minutely floccose small circular ridge running around" the stem.  The gills are close to crowded, white at first (becoming pallidlygrayish), thin, and about 3–5 mm broad.  There is no clear information about the short gills.
stem The stems is reported to be 30–70 × 5–9 (–10) mm, with it ground color not recorded although it becomes brownish due to the dried slime.  The stem is cylindric or narrowing upward, with the region at the top nearly undecorated; otherwise, the stem is "yellow ocher" due to a covering of slime. The flesh was said to be pallid and solid.  A relatively thick bracelet of slime ["narrow, glutinous, brownish"] is created along the line of last contact between the cap edge and the stem.  As the slimy coating dries on the stem, it is said to reveal a subfloccose decoration.  This decoration is probably composed of the "slime-supporting" hyphae that kept the slime together on the stem surface.
odor/taste Odor is lacking. However, while the taste of the slime is "mild," the taste of the flesh of this mushroom is said to be (on occasion) both suggestive of flour or meal and slightly astringent.
spores Smith reported the spores as measuring 4–5 × 3 µm and inamyloid.  RET estimates they would have been subglobose to broadly ellipsoid (maybe occasionally ellipsoid).  Clamps were not originally reported; they are probably present at bases of basidia as well as throughout all or much of the fruiting bodies of the present species.
discussion This species occurs solitarily to gregariously and is sometimes subcespitose.  Smith knew the species from Virginia and Tennessee in woods of oak or maple.
brief editors RET

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