BRIEF DESCRIPTION: The cap of A. artica is 78^± mm wide, convex to campanulate at first, becoming subplanar with slight umbo, smooth, with short striate, decurved, nonappendiculate margin (less than .2% of the radius); the cap is whitish with pale yellowish disc or entirely ochraceous gray. The flesh is white and rather thick in disc. The volva is absent.

The gills are free, crowded, off-white in mass, white to pale cream in side view. The short gills are truncate, of diverse lengths, and unevenly distributed.

The stem is 120^± x 12^± mm, whitish, cylindric or narrowing upward. It has a dense pulverulent coating near the top, at least in younger material. The flesh is white, stuffed with rather dense white materia. The saccate to cupulate volva is membranous, white, short in proportion to stem length, and often missing from dried material.

The spores measure (8.8-) 10.0 - 13.2 (-18.5) x (7.5-) 9.0 - 12.2 (-16.8) µm and are globose to subglobose to broadly ellipsoid and inamyloid. Clamps are occasionally present on bases of basidia.

This subarctic species was originally described from Greenland. The dark stain on the stipe flesh in the photograph is a reaction to a phenol spot test.

Amanita nivalis Grev. is sometimes mistaken for this species and vice versa. Morphologically, the present species is most similar to A. islandica Melot. -- R. E. Tulloss

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Last changed 28 September 2009.
This page is maintained by R. E. Tulloss.
Copyright 2003, 2004, 2009 by Rodham E. Tulloss.
Photograph copyright 2003 by TorbjØrn Borgen.