BRIEF DESCRIPTION: Amanita lactea has an entirely white fruiting body. Its cap is 40 - 130 mm wide, has a striate margin, and often is covered in part by a large patch of the universal veil.

The gills are free, moderately close to distant, white at first, then pale cream or "pale ochraceous butter-colored" in age, sometimes with pink "reflections" when viewed from bottom of pileus. The short gills are truncate and infrequent.

The stem is 50 - 120 x 10 - 30 mm, has a large, flaring saccate volva (up to 45 x 60 mm and 3 mm thick near attachment to stipe) at its base, and has a very weakly structured annulus that is often absent at maturity.

The spores measure (10.1-) 11.0 - 15.5 (-21) x (6.5-) 7.8 - 10.3 (-15.2) um and are broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid to elongate and inamyloid. Clamps are absent from the bases of basidia.

The species is associated with oak, beech, and pine.

This species was originally described from France and Morocco. It occurs in countries around the Mediterranean and northward to southern Germany.

This species is very unlike other known taxa in Amanita section Vaginatae. Because it sometimes has a weak annulus, one might compare it with the Mexican species A. tuza Guzmán. -- R. E. Tulloss & A. Gminder