Gills are free, white, pointed at both ends, 3 mm broad. 

Its stem is 60 - 90 × 4 - 6  mm, white, fibrillose, stuffed, cylindric, and detaches easily from the cap. The stem has a ring that is placed near the middle, thin, very fragile, and skirt-like. The volva is saccate, membranous, white or dark brown. The flesh is white.

The taste is acrid. 

The spores measure 7.5 - 9 × 6.5 - 8 µm and are subglobose to broadly ellipsoid. Clamps are said to be absent at bases of basidia by Pegler and Shah-Sm. (1997). Beeli measured spores as 6.5 - 8 µm in diameter and inamyloid. Gilbert (1940) presents six drawings of spores, however only two are in side view. These measure 7.2 - 8 (-9) × 6 - 7 µm and are subglobose to broadly ellipsoid.

The present species was originally described from the Belgium Congo in dry forests.

Madame Goossens' watercolor shows a species with a totally elongating stem inserting in an extraordinarily thick, saccate volva. Gilbert interpreted this as a bulb similar to that at the base of the stem of A. virosa (Fr.) Bertillon in DeChambre; however there is no question that this species is not in section Phalloideae because its spores are inamyloid.

The spore drawing in Beeli (1935) confirms that the spores are not truly globose. It could be interpreted as a subglobose or broadly ellipsoid spore. The cap in Madame Goossens' drawing is considerably more gray than the original description might lead you to believe and while the margin is dark while young, in the oldest specimen depicted the margin of the cap is pale, probably because the skin of the cap has cracked over the expanded striations to show the white flesh and gills. There is a confusing pink tint in some of the 1935 reproduction of the Goossens watercolors which may have led Pegler and Shah-Sm. (1997) to believe that the cap could have a pink tint. The paintings of Madame Goossens show that the volva encloses 20 - 35% of the stem. 

Pegler and Shah-Smith report this species form Zambia and Malawi in association with open Brachystegia woodland. Their description differs from that of Beeli only in adding yellowish-brown or yellowish-pink to the list of colors observed on the cap. Continued examination of well- annotated material would be valuable in determining variation in this species. 

If it is correct that this species lacks clamps on its basidia it would be an example of an annulate species that is quite nonconformant with others in section Caesareae. Since the subhymenium is reported as cellular, which is consistent with the Caesareae, it would be worth re-examining the bases of basidia for clamps.
-- R. E. Tulloss

[ Section  Caesareae page. ]  [ Amanita Studies ] [ Keys & Checklist/Picturebooks ]
[ Subsaharan List ]

Last changed 20 June 2008.
This page is maintained by R. E. Tulloss.
Copyright 2005, 2007, 2008 by Rodham E. Tulloss.