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Amanitaceae


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Hello, some of you may remember me from the old site. My name is Rod Tulloss. I've spent 33 years studying mushrooms and, in particular, the genus Amanita. I'm largely bald, have a salt & pepper mustache, and live near the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Over the last eleven years, I built up a website concerning the genus Amanita that some of you may have used.

I am worried about the future of all fields of taxonomy because it is rarely being taught in Northern Hemisphere colleges and universities. The job of taxonomists in the Northern Hemisphere is not (and never will be) done. The burst of interest in diversity and the taxonomy that helps us understand it after the Rio conference has largely been diverted into large expenditures on molecular studies and web data mining of taxonomic data. The only thing wrong with this is the exclusion of traditional morphological taxonomy from the funding stream for research. In England, a parliamentary study called the situation "the taxonomic impediment." In simple terms, the taxonomic impediment is that old men and women with heads full of species-knowledge are dying off; and there are no replacements.

I have never been dependent on that stream of research funding. I had a non-taxonomic job until I retired some years back. Like a lot of the folks in this group, I did what I wanted to do when I could do it.

Nevertheless, what has occurred in the loss of taxonomists (directly related to the loss of funding for taxonomy) is very important to me because I have a goodly chunk of a lifetime's worth of taxonomic knowledge that has not been transferred into the hands and mind of a sufficient number of younger people so that there would be an acceptable probability that one of them might carry on my work.

I've spent many years trying to document what I think I know, making mistakes, correcting the mistakes, trying to document how not to make mistakes, etc., etc.

The best thing I can think of to do is to keep trying to learn more and keep talking about what I've learned...and to do that talking in ways that I hope will be most effective.

I hope this posting might be one occasion for me to do occasional small dumps of data for people to whom the information would be interesting and/or useful.

Very best,

Rod

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I agree with you concerning taxonomy by visual characteristics. I don't want to have to

depend on using a scanning electron microscope or DNA analysis every time I want to know

what it is I have found. In the majority of cases the knowledge you and others possess

is more than enough to answer that question for me.

I will keep posting finds and asking questions -- and try to pass along what I learn in

turn. Thank you for your dedication to the quest for knowledge.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Zora,

That is some Amanita! It is very likely to belong to Amanita sect. Lepidella because of the decorated cap margin, the large size, the rather irregular and rather deeply rooting bulb, and the largely unpigmented fruiting body. I see you're from Pennsylvania; so I'd suggest that the species has a good chance of being on the one or both of the New Jersey checklist or the Smoky Mountains checklist on the old "Amanita Studies" site:

http://eticomm.net/~ret/amanita/keylist.html

I think the most likely choices are A. rhopalopus and A. ravenelii. This year, the very dry summer seems to have produced abnormal bulbs on many specimens that I've seen; so I'm inclined to think that the circular crevice around the stem base is not normal. The close-up of the warts on the cap suggests that they do not have a base that is largely composed of hyphae (this would show up as fine fibers extending from the bases of the warts); and this would exclude A. ravenelii. I have never seen a bulb like this on A. rhopalopus; however, I think that this species could well be what you have found.

This is a hard year in which to ID amanitas from pictures. The above is my best guess.

Very best,

Rod

P.S. Did you dry it? If so, would you be willing to send me a piece?

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Thank you for the info.

I don't really understand this "the close-up of the warts on the cap suggests that they do not have a base that is largely composed of hyphae (this would show up as fine fibers extending from the bases of the warts);"

I would be glad to send it. How should I dry it? Dry it whole? Slice it? Right now it is sitting on my outside table.

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Thank you for the info.

I don't really understand this "the close-up of the warts on the cap suggests that they do not have a base that is largely composed of hyphae (this would show up as fine fibers extending from the bases of the warts);"

The warts would look like this in A. ravenelii:

52490.jpg

The warts on yours are on a smooth cap.

I found one of those last year, and another this year in the same place :)

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Looks like you've got a good one there, zora. Those thick, robust Amanitas can be difficult to dry out in one big piece. If you're having trouble, or if you aren't really equipped to get the whole thing dried, then maybe a few slices? Try for a piece of cap that includes cuticle, warts, and gills, and maybe a slice of the stalk (lengthwise) which includes some of the surface and interior material.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The warts would look like this in A. ravenelii:

The warts on yours are on a smooth cap.

I found one of those last year, and another this year in the same place :)

.....................

That is a terrific photograph showing how the thread-like hyphae dominate the bottom part of the warts and are left spread out around the main part of the wart during expansion of the cap. The structure of the warts in ravenelii also often make the slopes of the wart appear to have grooves that look like erosion channels on a hillside. The volva of _rhopalopus_ is too fluffy to get that sort of appearance.

Again, FB, great photo!

Very best,

Rod

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Zora,

I received the dried material today. Next step is to catalog it in the herbarium and take a look at it under the scope.

Thank you very much for taking the time to dry, package, and send this critter.

Very best,

Rod

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  • 1 month later...

Dave W called my attention to Vlad's posting. Vlad tried to contact me, but somehow I never understood where the post was that he wanted me to see. My fault entirely.

I agree with Dave. The color is very intense in this set of specimens. The annulus on the stem did not become gray with age (two characters that I associate with Amanita spreta); however, there is no other name for a relatively robust species of section Caesareae with short marginal striations, a relatively small volval sac, and cap color in the gray-brown to white range that grows in the eastern U.S.

It would be very interesting to study multiple populations that would fall under our current concept of A. spreta and see if there were anatomical or genetic characters that would separate part the overall groups of fruiting bodies into more than one taxon.

Rod

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Thanks Dave and Rod. George Riner and Noah Siegel are very experienced mushroom people and they were stumped! I will make a point of checking that site and see if I can find that specie again. If I do I will let you know.

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