name | Amanita muscaria var. guessowii |
name status | nomen acceptum |
author | Veselý |
english name | "American Fly Agaric (yellow variant)" |
synonyms |
=Amanita muscaria var.formosa sensu auct. amer. orient. |
images |
1. Amanita amerimuscaria (yellow variant), Massachusetts, U.S.A. 2. Amanita amerimuscaria, GMNP, Isl. of Newfoundland, Prov. Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada. 3. Amanita amerimuscaria (yellow variant), GMNP, Isl. of Newfoundland, Prov. Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada. 4. Amanita amerimuscaria (yellow variant), New Jersey, U.S.A. 5. Amanita amerimuscaria (yellow variant), New Jersey, U.S.A. 6. Amanita amerimuscaria (yellow variant), Monmouth Co., New Jersey, U.S.A. 7. Amanita amerimuscaria (yellow variant), northern Prov. Québec, Canada. |
intro |
Amanita muscaria var. guessowii is the common, bright yellow and/or yellow and orange fly agaric of eastern North America. The European name A. muscaria var. formosa Pers. has been mistakenly applied to this taxon. Some macroscopic dimensions in the following are taken from (Jenkins, 1977). |
cap | Its cap is 45 - 180 mm wide. The pigment may wash out in rain or fail to develop under detritus if the latter covers a large part of the cap. The volva is distributed over the cap as cream to pale tan warts that tend to become somewhat sordid with age. The cap margin often becomes striate at maturity or in age. The context of the cap does not stain when cut or bruised. |
gills | The gills are narrowly adnate, subcrowded crowded mass and pale to cream in side view (with no observed staining or bruising reaction), with breadth 7.5 - 9+ mm. The short gills are truncate, unevenly distributed, of diverse lengths, and plentiful. |
stem |
The 60 - 150 × 6 - 21 mm stem (length includes a notable basal bulb) is white to yellowish cream to pale yellow and annulate and usually narrows upward and flares at the top. The stem surface is pulverulent above the ring and coarsely shaggy to fibrillose and longitudinally finely striate, below. The stem is stuffed in its 4+ mm wide central cylinder with densely packed white material (fibers of which have longitudinal orientation). Tunnels of insect larvae through the flesh become yellow-brown. The ring is membranous, persistent, skirt-like, and located on the upper part of the stem; it may bear numerous warts from the internal limb of the volva on the underside of its free edge. The upper side of the ring is often not striate, and the underside is often pulverulent. The basal bulb is subglobose to subovoid and 20± × 21± mm. The lower stipe and upper bulb are decorated with partial or complete rings of volval material as in the type variety. The volval material ranges from bright pale yellow to cream to sordid cream. Notice (for example, in some images above) that the volval material on the stipe base may also take a form reminiscent of the volva of species such as A. pantherina (DC. : Fr.) Krombh., A. albocreata G. F. Atk., A. multisquamosa Peck, or A. velatipes G. F. Atk. |
spores |
The spores measure (7.0-) 8.7 - 12.2 (-14.8) × (5.9-) 6.5 - 8.2 (-9.5) µm and are broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid (infrequently subglobose or elongate) and inamyloid. Clamps are present at bases of basidia. |
discussion |
This taxon can be found rather commonly in the boreal forests of eastern Canada (personally observed in Prov. Québec and on the Island of Newfoundland). Its range extends considerably further to the west and south. It is probably limited by the Great Plains of the central USA [the westernmost state cited in the variety''s range by Jenkins (1986) is Michigan]. The present taxon is known at least as far south as the central Applachian mountains (in North Carolina and Tennessee). Dried and annotated material from outside the above stated limits of distribution is very much desired by the author. This variety apparently contains the same toxins as Amanita muscaria (L. : Fr.) Lam. subsp. muscaria of Europe, northern Asia, and far northwestern North America (western Alaska). With the recent large increase in immigration from Mexico into the eastern half of the U.S., we have seen an increase in poisonings by var. guessowii because it is mistaken for the edible Amanita basii Guzmán & Ramírez-Guillén (until recently, called "Amanita caesarea" by Mexican authors). When diagnosing the poisoning by questioning a Spanish-speaking victim, it is important not to simply translate "amarillo" as "yellow." One of the common names of Amanita basii in Mexico is "amarillo." A poisoning victim recently immigrated from Mexico to the eastern U.S. may be conveying the name of the mushroom by the word "amarillo," not just the color of it. Amanita muscaria var. guessowii is associated primarily with conifers, but can occur with deciduous tree genera as well. It often occurs in the Fall in the mid-Atlantic states of the U.S., but it may appear as early as May in years with plentiful Spring rains. The northern limit of the range of this taxon is north of the Isl. of Labrador and central Quebec. The southern limit is not clear to me, but the range certainly includes the central Appalachian region. Other American taxa currently treated as varieties or subspecies of A. muscaria are A muscaria var. alba Peck, A. muscaria var. persicina Dav. T. Jenkins, and A. muscaria subsp. flavivolata Singer—R. E. Tulloss |
brief editors | RET |
name | Amanita muscaria var. guessowii | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
author | Veselý. 1933. Ann. Mycol. 31(4): 254. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
name status | nomen acceptum | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
english name | "American Fly Agaric (yellow variant)" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
synonyms |
≡Amanita muscaria var. formosa f. guessowii ("gussowii") (Veselý) Neville & Poumarat. 2002 ["2001"]. Bull. Trimestriel Soc. Mycol. France 117(4): 305. [Misapplication.]
=Venenarius muscarius sensu Murrill. 1913. Mycologia 5: 94, pl. 87 (fig. 3). [Misapplication.]
=Amanita muscaria sensu Güssow & O’dell. 1927. Mushr. Toadst.: 36, pl. 1 & 6. [Misapplication.]
=Amanita muscaria var. formosa sensu Dav. T. Jenkins. 1977. Biblioth. Mycol. 57: 53. [Misapplication. Amanita muscaria var. formosa Pers. is certainly not a North American taxon (Persoon said nothing to justify any such assumption) as proposed by Neville and Poumarat (2002, 2004), but more probably a color variant of the true A. muscaria.] The editors of this site owe a great debt to Dr. Cornelis Bas whose famous cigar box files of Amanita nomenclatural information gathered over three or more decades were made available to RET for computerization and make up the lion's share of the nomenclatural information presented on this site. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
etymology | genetive of Latinized name, "Güssow's" or "of Güssow" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MycoBank nos. | 486234, 374047 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GenBank nos. |
Due to delays in data processing at GenBank, some accession numbers may lead to unreleased (pending) pages.
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lectotypes | [search for syntypes not completed] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
intro |
Olive text indicates a specimen that has not been
thoroughly examined (for example, for microscopic details) and marks other places in the text
where data is missing or uncertain. The following material not directly from the protolog of the present taxon is based upon original research by R. E. Tulloss. This description is obviously incomplete. Since recent studies suggest that this "taxon" may have to be reinterpreted as a cluster of genetically segregated yellow variants of Amanita amerimuscaria Tulloss & Geml nom. prov. (proposed new name based on A. muscaria subsp. flavivolvata Singer), it is suggested that readers interested in the probable microscopic anatomy of the "yellow variant" make reference to the reported microscopic characteristics of the just named taxon. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
pileus | 60 - 91 mm wide, margin yellow to pale yellow to orange-yellow with disk yellow-orange to orange to red-orange, sometimes entire pileus may be very pale if it is covered by detritus that protects it from sunlight, also decoloring in rain, hemispheric becoming convex then planoconvex and sometimes umbilicate, viscid when wet, tacky when drying, shiny when drying or dry; context ?, intense orange or yellow under pileipellis, fading to pale yellowish white in direction of lamellae, up to 10 mm thick over stipe, thinning evenly to margin; margin short striate (up to 0.2R), nonappendiculate; universal veil as warts or confluent warts irregularly distributed or approximately in concentric circles, subfloccose, pale yellow to pale sordid yellow fading to off-white to cream to sordid cream on exposure, detersile. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
lamellae | free to very narrowly adnate, sometimes with short decurrent line on stipe apex, subcrowded to crowded, cream in mass, white to pale cream to cream in side view, 7.5 - 9 mm broad, with edge minutely flocculose with white material except near margin of pileus where such material is yellowish; lamellulae truncate, unevenly distributed, of diverse lengths, plentiful. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
stipe | 69 - 120 × 10- - 15 mm, white to yellowish cream to pale yellow (in latter cases white at apex), becoming deeper yellow when handled, narrowing upward or narrowest at mid-height, flaring at apex, pulverulent above annulus, fibrillose to fibrous to squamulose and more or less longitudinally striatulate below; context pale yellowish white, unchanging when cut or bruised (unless senile?, then yellowing), solid to stuffed, with stuffing material comprising cottony white densely packed hyphae having roughly longitudinal orientation, with central cylinder 4± mm wide; bulb 20± × 20.5± mm, subglobose to subovoid to subventricose, often strikingly white, ?; partial veil whitish to very pale yellowish, thin, membranous, with thickened edge, median, pulverulent on upper surface, floccose on underside; universal veil in rings or broken rings on base of stipe above bulb, sometimes extending over several cm of stipe, sometimes more yellow than on pileus, fading and/or becoming sordid as on pileus. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
odor/taste | Odor pleasantly fungoid. Taste not reported. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
macrochemical tests |
information not yet organized for presentation. (t.b.d.) POISON. Producing the Pantherine Syndrome in humans. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
lamella trama | bilateral; wcs = 40 - 45 µm; (t.b.d.); clamps occasional. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
subhymenium | wst-near = 70 - 120 µm; wst-far = 95 - 150 µm; (t.b.d.); clamps occasional. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
basidia | (t.b.d.); clamps moderately common. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
universal veil | On pileus: filamentous, undifferentiated hyphae ?? µm wide, branching, ??, with many having yellowish subrefractive walls; inflated cells terminal (clavate to ellipsoid to ??, up to 114 × 56 µm) or intercalary (fusiform, up to 89 × 20 µm), singly or in short chains, with walls up to 1.5 µm thick, ??; vascular hyphae 3.0 - 14.0 µm wide, branching, scattered, ??; clamps present. On stipe base: ??. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
basidiospores | [140/7/7] (7.0-) 9.0 - 12.0 (-14.8) × (5.9-) 6.5 - 8.2 (-9.5) µm, (L = 9.2 - 11.4 µm; L’ = 10.5 µm; W = 7.1 - 7.8 µm; W’ = 7.4 µm; Q = (1.09-) 1.28 - 1.56 (-1.70); Q = 1.30 - 1.49; Q’ = 1.43), thin-walled, smooth, hyaline, colorless, inamyloid, broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid, occasionally elongate, infrequently subglobose, often adaxially flattened; apiculus sublateral, truncate-conic; contents dominantly monoguttulate; white in deposit. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ecology | In groups, often gregarious or in troops. Prov. Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada: In field, adjacent to forest edge with Picea glauca. Prov. Québec: In dry loam and duff of mixed forest including Betula, Pinus strobus, etc. New Jersey: Under Picea abies or Pinus spp. or under Tsuga canadensis or in mixed coniferous forest. North Carolina: On roadside under Picea engelmannii or under introduced Cedrus deodara. West Virginia: Under P. strobus or under P. resinosa. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
material examined |
CANADA: NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR—Isl. of Newfoundland - Corner Brook, Humber Village Pond, 29.ix.2003 Maria & Andrus Voitk & R. E. Tulloss s.n. [Tulloss 9-29-03-A] (RET 270-7); GMNP, Killdevil Anglican Church Camp, tr. from camp to Lemona R., 15.ix.2004 Maria Voitk & R. E. Tulloss [Tulloss 9-15-04-A] (RET 383-3, β-tubulin & tef1) & nrLSU seq'd.; Stanleyville [49.4665° N/ 57.7805° W, 30 m], 13.ix.2004 R. E. Tulloss, M. & A. Voitk s.n. (RET 383-7, nrITS seq'd.).
QUÉBEC—Région Saugenay-Lac-Saint-Jean - Lac-Bouchette, L’Ermitage St. Antoine, behind Le Béthanie beside pedestrian tr., 31.viii.2006 R. E. Tulloss 8-31-06-B (RET 395-2).
U.S.A.:
INDIANA—Monroe Co. - Bloomington, Leonard Springs [39.1104° N/ 86.0880° W, 286 m], 16.ix.2012 Stephen Russell s.n. [mushroomobserver. org #110016] (RET 534-9), 23.ix.2012 S. Russell s.n. [mushroomobserver. org #111015] (RET 533-3). Vigo Co. - NE of Prairie Creek, Prairie Creek Park [39.2860° N/ 87.4654° W, 169 m], 22.ix.2012 Patrick Harvey s.n. [mushroomobserver. org #110834] (RET 517-8, nrITS seq'd.).
MAINE—Hancock Co. - Crocker Pond, 12.viii.1991 McVeigh s.n. [RET 8-12-91-B] (RET 031-4).
MASSACHUSETTS—Hampden Co. - Springfield, Forest Park, 28.vii.1986 Ellen Greer s.n. [Tulloss 7-28-86-EG5] (RET 466-8). Unkn. Co. - N of Boston, x.1987 Al Ferry s.n. [Tulloss 10-87-AF1] (RET 124-2, nrITS seq'd.). Unkn. Co. - unkn. loc. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
discussion |
This name is currently believed to apply to a group of yellow variants of Amanita muscaria subsp. flavivolvata, which, moreover, is not truly assignable to A. muscaria. A phylogenetic study of the North American and Eurasian muscarioid taxa has appeared (Geml et al. 2008); allied taxonomic studies are in draft (by Tulloss, Geml, et al.). t.b.d. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
citations | —R. E. Tulloss | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
editors | RET | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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name | Amanita muscaria var. guessowii |
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name | Amanita muscaria var. guessowii |
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[ Keys & Checklists ] |
Each spore data set is intended to comprise a set of measurements from a single specimen made by a single observer; and explanations prepared for this site talk about specimen-observer pairs associated with each data set. Combining more data into a single data set is non-optimal because it obscures observer differences (which may be valuable for instructional purposes, for example) and may obscure instances in which a single collection inadvertently contains a mixture of taxa.