Many species of Amanita are to be found more or less frequently in company with the esculent varieties recommended in the chapters following. Among these the two extremes of variation from the typical form are seen in the A. muscarius in its permanent retention of the volva scales and the obscurity of its cup, and in the A. phalloides, herewith pictured about half natural size, with the frequent entire absence of these remnant scales, which wither and fall off, leaving the yellowish or greenish cap perfectly smooth.
It is to the volva or cup, then, that we must turn for the one fixed permanent character by which this genus is to be identified.
AMANITA PHALLOIDES
