Photographed by Dr. J.R. Weist. Plate IX.
AMANITA MUSCARIA.
Pileus at first ovate or hemispherical, then broadly convex or nearly plane, slightly viscid when young and moist, rough with numerous whitish or yellowish warts, rarely smooth, narrowly and slightly striate on the margin, white, yellow or orange-red. Gills white. Stem equal or slightly tapering upward, stuffed with webby fibrils or hollow, bearing a white ring above, ovate-bulbous at the base, white or yellowish; the volva usually breaking up into scales and adhering to the upper part of the bulb and the base of the stem. Spores elliptical, 8–10x6–8µ.
Plant 5–8 in. high. Pileus 3–6 in. broad. Peck, 33d Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
A white variety, with the pileus thickly studded with sharp warts, occurs in Albany Rural Cemetery. July. Peck, 24th Rep.
Var. al´ba Pk. It also occurs on Long Island in two forms, the normal one and a smaller one, in which the warts of the pileus are evanescent or wanting. Not unfrequently it makes a close approach to white forms of A. pantherina, in having the upper part of the bulb uniformly margined by the remains of the definitely circumscissile volva, but this margin is more acute than in that species. Peck, 46th Rep. N.Y. State Bot.
Spores spheroid-ellipsoid, 10–12x8–9µ K.; 6x9µ, W.G.S.; elliptical, 8–10x6–8µ Peck.
“At Cincinnati, yellow A. muscaria are all we find.” Lloyd.
Reported from most of the states. At Mt. Gretna I found it in great quantity, and frequently three or four tightly crowded together. Many pounds of it were sent to Professor Chittenden, Sheffield Laboratory, Yale University. Near Haddonfield, N.J., large patches annually grow under pines, gorgeous in their rich orange-red caps, usually scaly, with at times lemon-yellow in the same clusters, smooth as A. Cæsarea. It grows from July until after hard frosts.