Specimen # 12 Agaric (gilled) Fungus



Fig. 1 Shows a view of what the
gills look like- cream colored and thick.
Also shows the "saclike" base
 (Brooke Warren).

 Name: Amanita vaginata -Grisette
Family: Amanitaceae
Collection date: October 8, 2011
Habitat: Growing under a conifer
Location: Hiram field station
Description: "The cap is 3-10 cm broad, at first oval, then convex and finally plane or with a slight hump in the middle. The surface is slightly viscid when moist, gray to grayish-brown, smooth or sometimes a white patch or patches of universal veil tissue; margin grooved (deeply striate). The flesh is soft, white to grayish, and thin. The gills are white or tinged gray. Spores are white. The stalk is around 7-15 cm long and up to 2 cm thick. It is usually long and slender, smooth and white or covered with delicate gray or grayish-brown scales. The partial veil is absent while the universal veil is membranous, forming a saclike volva that sheathes the stalk but is attached only at the base. The volva is white or tinged gray, loose, and lobed. Usually solitary or scattered in small groups in woods or under trees" (Arora p. 288, 1986).
Collector: Brooke Warren
Keys used: Arora, D. (1986). Mushrooms Demystified. New York: Ten Speed Press.
Keying steps:
Key to the Basidiomycetes1A. Basidia and spores borne externally (on the exposed surfaces of gills, tubes,
spines, branches, lobes, etc.); spores forcibly discharged at
maturity, i.e., a spore print often (but not always) obtainable; fruiting body with a cap and stalk, or clublike,
or branched, or bracketlike, or crustlike (without a stalk or sometimes without a cap) or lobed  or bloblike, etc. ... 2
2B. Not as above... Hymenomycetes p. 58


Key to the Hymenomycetes1B. Not as above; pores and tubes absent... 3
3A. Underside of cap with radiating blades (gills)... Agaricales p. 59

Key to the Agaricales
1B. Not as above; spores forcibly discharged, hence a spore print obtainable if spores are being produced; gills
exposed at maturity; common and widespread... 2
2A. Spore print white to buff, yellow, yellow-orange, or lilac-tinged...3
3A. Universal veil enveloping young specimens and forming a volva at base of stalk when it ruptures and or leaving numerous remnants (warts or flat patches) on cap... Amanitaceae, p. 262

Key to Amanita
1A. Volva saclike (i.e. forming a true sac that sheathes base of stalk as shown on p. 264); cap usually bald or with a cottony or membranous patch of universal veil tissue or occasionally with several patches or non-friable warts... 2
2B. Not with above features... 3
3A. Margin of cap distinctly striate (at least when mature)... 4
4B. Partial veil and annulus absent or rudimentary (but stalk sometimes scaly)... 8
8A. Cap dark brown to gray or grayish-brown... 9
9B. Fruiting body medium-sized to rather small and slender; cap usually gray, but sometimes grayish-brown or browm; gill edges not brown; widely distributed... 49
49B. Not as above; volva saclike... A. vaginata, p. 288

Fig. 2 Cap is a brownish-gray color with a
hump in the middle (Brooke Warren).

Fig. 3 A good sized fruiting body-same length as my hand.
This picture shows a view of the cream colored gills
(Brooke Warren).

Links:
http://www.mushroomexpert.com/amanita_vaginata.html
http://www.mykoweb.com/CAF/species/Amanita_vaginata.html
http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Mushrooms.Folder/Grisette.html
http://www.capsandstems.com/Amanita_vaginata.htm