Is this Amanita fulva?

Wood Wanderer · #1 (**permalink**) 12-01-2012, 10:38 PM

Can anyone confirm that this is Amanita fulva not seen it with warts on the cap before, found in mixed wood in October

Apologies in advance if I am in the wrong genus .....

mollisia · #2 (**permalink**) 13-01-2012, 08:14 AM

Hello,

the genus is undoubtly correct: Amanita.

But which species is not easy to tell from just this one foto. It is certainly a fruitbody that has damages by climatical conditions, most probably drought or may be big temperature differences between night and day.

Therefore it is not easy to answer the following important questions for a determination:

Does this species has a ring or not? Or did it had one once?
Does this species has a volva or not?

So we can not even be sure if it belongs into the subgenus Amanitopsis or not! The strongly striate margin suggest it, and therefore Amanita rubescens can be no choice (though it looks very much like it). Amanita fulva is possible. Sometimes the surrounding veil disruts in a strange way, so thet even in Amanitopsis species the veil can lay in floccules on the cap. In this case the veil material is (nearly) missing at the stem base and the fruitbodies shows (nearly) no volva! But the other possibility what this could be is Amanita eliae, to which I tend to. But this is of course no determination, but just a guess!

best regards,
Andreas

Wood Wanderer · #3 (**permalink**) 13-01-2012, 10:44 AM

Thanks Andreas

Can see from your reply why I was having problems identifying this fungus, at least I chose the correct genus !!

Hadn't realised the extent weather can play in the physical appearance of a fungus fruit body, thanks again for your very useful input, I am learning all the time ......

SheffieldLass · #4 (**permalink**) 13-01-2012, 05:12 PM

When did some of Amanita become Amanitopsis? It is difficult to keep up these days ...

Melanie

Ditiola · #5 (**permalink**) 13-01-2012, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SheffieldLass

When did some of Amanita become Amanitopsis? It is difficult to keep up these days ...

Melanie

The understand that the BMS are doing a workshop in the spring!

Yesterday I was trawling through the Amanita species on the BMS database and looking up photos of the names that I did not recognise and I was amazed at how many rare look-alikes to common species there is out there.

Peter

mollisia · #6 (**permalink**) 13-01-2012, 07:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SheffieldLass

When did some of Amanita become Amanitopsis? It is difficult to keep up these days ...

Melanie

Hi Mel,

I didn't say that! In contrast: I said it is a Amanita.

I said "subgenus Amanitopsis". In earlier days the Amanita without ring, but with volva and striate cap margin have been a genus of its own: Amanitopsis. Nowadays nearly unanimousely Amanitopsis is seen only as subgenus (or may be sometimes only as section) within Amanita.
In Germany we have different popular names for the real Amanitae (called "Wulstling" or "Knollenblätterpilz") and the ringless Amanitae = subgenus Amanitopsis (called "Scheidenstreifling"). Don't know whether there is a difference in Britain too in popular names of the two subgenera.

best regards,
Andreas

SheffieldLass · #7 (**permalink**) 13-01-2012, 08:20 PM

phew ..

I didn't read your post carefully enough

No, our (few) long established popular names for fungi tend to be based on superficial detail or obvious individual characters, rather than what they have in common.

So for the Amanita genus there is Fly agaric, the Blusher, Death Cap, False Death Cap, Destroying Angel, Panther Cap, and Caesar's Cap, Grisette (not sure where that comes from, but maybe we learnt that from the French when they invaded us or we invaded them

), and Tawny Grisette ... that is about it, and that is for those British who are good at fungi

. For the rest, there's the Witch's toadstool (i.e. fly agaric), and 'toadstools' - which means poisonous, bad, don't touch, even with a long pole .... And that includes everything with a stalk and cap except for those sold at the greengrocers, or those whitish ones looking vaguely like those sold there, which when you see them growing in a field or wood you rush out and pick, and check by seeing whether the caps peel ... they are called 'mushrooms'. Which are 'good' until you get an 'iffy' stomach and a panic attack and rush off to hospital - thereafter they are known as 'toadstools'. So it is quite easy here, not too much to remember.

Melanie

p.s. Caesar's Cap must be from when the Romans invaded England ...

fairplay · #8 (**permalink**) 13-01-2012, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SheffieldLass

p.s. Caesar's Cap must be from when the Romans invaded England ...

No, it's when WE invaded Romany - or some place like that.

As we have never had Caesar's Mushroom growing in the UK, it is hard to imagine the Romans coming here and saying "This we call Caesar's Mushroom"
So I'd imagine some British Mycologist on a European tour brought the name back with him. (And I wonder how many mycologists have brought spores back in the hope they can establish a population here, or even to be able to claim a first record for the UK ?)
So much for 'Global warming'

Neil.

mollisia · #9 (**permalink**) 13-01-2012, 10:25 PM

Hello,

yes, the differences between "mushrooms" and "toadstool" are known to me. And that one become the other after haveing consumed it is logical, but new to me, as I have to admit

Grisettes are the group of Amanita that formerly were the genus Amanitopsis. Grisette derives from the french name of the most common (no: most often named so ...) species in the group, Amanita vaginata, called "Amanite gris" (Grauer Scheidenstreifling in german). We today know, that there is not only one Amanita vaginata or Grisette, but appr. 40 species of those "grisettes", including some orange ones (A. crocea), redbrown ones (A. fulva), white and brown ones. So you could start to name them "Grey Grisette", "Brown Grisette", "Grey-brown Grisette", "Dark grey-brown Grisette" .....

We try to teach our advanced beginners here the difference betwenn the true Amanitas and the "Grisettes", as the latter are all edible, and some species are very common here. And if you have 5 days excursions and working with fungi, and every day you have at least three different species of those Grisettes, you can afterwards recognize them even if you have not even known how to recognize the genus Amanita before!

By the way: What are the characters to identify a member of the genus Amanita macroscopically? (No it is not the 100.000$-question ....)

best regards,
Andreas