| Amanita
austrophalloides A. E. Wood "Australian Death Cap" :: Technical description (t.b.d.) BRIEF DESCRIPTION: The following is largely based on the original description (Wood 1997). The single, fairly young collection examined had caps of up to 45 mm wide, convex, smooth, dry, pallid gray, with a greenish metallic sheen when first collected, with a nonstriate margin. Volval remains are present as a few drab cream colored, small, flat, membranous scales. The gills are free, thin, crowded, white to slightly off-white, with a concolorous edge. The short gills are present in at least two series. The stem is up to 50 × 10 mm, smooth, and off-white. The incomplete ring is white, membranous, and "probably would be fugacious." The bulb is pronounced, subglobose, is white, and bears a distinct, white, membranous, free limb that surrounds the stem base. The spores measure 6.2 - 8.9 × 5.5 - 8.3 µm and are globose to subglobose and weakly, but distinctly, amyloid. Clamps are absent from bases of basidia. Wood describes the mushroom as occurring in association with Allocasuarina distyla and Casuarina glauca. This species is known from a single collection. There seems little doubt that Wood has placed this species correctly in section Phalloideae. Since the species is known only from one collection and considering the way in which the description is written (from a single, young specimen), the question of the permanence of its ring remains open and collection of additional material is needed. The fact that the cap is described as "finely radially fibrillose" could be interpreted as saying the pigment is distributed similarly to the pigment in such taxa as A. phalloides (Fr.:Fr.) Link, A. arocheae Tulloss, Ovrebo & Halling, A. marmorata Cleland & E. J. Gilbert, etc. In recent molecular work, which we hope to see in print soon, an Australian species A. marmorata is shown as the most basal in the Phalloideae of the taxa treated, with the exception of the taxa known not to contain amatoxins. It will be very interesting to know whether such species as A. austrophalloides and the Andean-Argentine species A. austroolivacea Raithelh. (with the phalloides-like distribution of pigment) contain amatoxins. -- R. E. Tulloss and L. Possiel Return to Section Phalloideae page. Last changed 21 December 2006. |