''Amanita spreta'' or the hated amanita is an inedible

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

Amanita The genus ''Amanita'' contains about 600 species of agarics, including some of the most toxic known mushrooms found worldwide, as well as some well-regarded edible species. This genus is responsible for approximately 95% of the fatalities result ...

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Description

''Amanita spreta'' is usually distinguished by its grayish brown cap with dark, radial streaks; its medium to large size, the presence of a ring on the upper stem, and its stem base, in which it features a white, sacklike volva and is not prominently swollen. Its ellipsoid, inamyloid spores also help to distinguish it.

Cap

The cap of ''A. spreta'' measures around 58 – 154 mm (5.8 - 15.4 cm) wide, with whitish or pallid tints of gray and/or brown at first, often darkening to gray-brown or brown-gray, often darkest in the center, often white or nearly white at the margin, having minute colorless spots and/or giving the impression of densely placed radial fibers embedded in the cap skin. In addition, the cap is broadly campanulate to plano-convex, and eventually has a large umbo in a slight depression. The cap is viscid to tacky and dull to shiny to subshiny with drying, and it has a decurved, short- striate margin. The volva is either absent or present as white to pale gray, scant, irregular patches, soft to smooth, easily removable, and membranous. The flesh is white, pale brown under the cap skin in the center, is 8 – 17 mm (0.8 - 1.7 cm) thick over the stem, and is thinning evenly nearing the margin.

Gills

The gills are free, receding at maturity, very crowded to crowded, pale cream to cream to white, 8 – 19 mm broad, broadest at the midpoint, anastomosing, with faint and short decurrent lines on the top of the stem, and with a minutely powdery edge. The short gills are truncate to rounded truncate to subtruncate, unevenly distributed, of diverse lengths, and plentiful (sometimes more plentiful than full-length gills). The short gills can be adjacent to the stipe or adjacent to the cap margin or neither.

Stem

The stem of ''A. spreta'' is 5–10 cm long, up to 2 cm thick, tapering slightly to apex, is whitish, sometimes discoloring a little brownish; finely hairy to shaggy; with a white, skirtlike ring that may discolor brownish; with a slightly enlarged but not bulbous base that is set in a sack-like, flaring or lobed, white volva. File:Amanita spreta 03.jpg File:Amanita spreta 14.jpg File:Amanita spreta 08.jpg

References

Literature

Saccardo, P.A. 1887. Sylloge Hymenomycetum, Vol. I. Agaricineae, p. 12 {{Taxonbar, from=Q28403802 spreta Inedible fungi