''Amanita basii'' is a

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans. The standard for the name "mushroom" is t ...

of the family ''

Amanitaceae The Amanitaceae is a family of mushroom-forming fungi. ''Amanita'' Pers. is one of the most specious and best-known fungal genera. The family, also commonly called the amanita family, is in order Agaricales, the gilled mushrooms. The family co ...

''.

Description

Its

cap A cap is a flat headgear, usually with a visor. Caps have crowns that fit very close to the head. They made their first appearance as early as 3200 BC. Caps typically have a visor, or no brim at all. They are popular in casual and informal se ...

is at around 67–152 mm wide, with a brown reddish color to " cadmium orange" becoming very intense red, "lake red" or brownish red in the center part of the cap, which is somewhat faded by the sun, in spots it's red-orange, orange-yellow to deep orange at the margin, yellow at the margin in maturity. The volva seen in the mushroom is absent in maturity or is present when young as small white patches. Its

flesh Flesh is any aggregation of soft tissues of an organism. Various multicellular organisms have soft tissues that may be called "flesh". In mammals, including humans, ''flesh'' encompasses muscle Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as mu ...

has a color ranging from butter yellow to yellowish under the cap skin, yellow in the center part and near the margin, from pale yellowish white to white elsewhere, the flesh is around 9 – 13 mm thick above the stem, and it thins evenly to the margin. The

gills A gill () is a respiratory organ that many aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are ...

are free, subcrowded, thickest close to the margin, and are around 9–12 mm broad. The stem is 124–137 × 16–23 mm with a pale yellowish to orange color in the upper part of the stem with light yellow as the ground color. The ring is attached in the upper part, subapical, skirt-like, copious,

membranous A membrane is a selective barrier; it allows some things to pass through but stops others. Such things may be molecules, ions, or other small particles. Membranes can be generally classified into synthetic membranes and biological membranes. ...

, persistent, orange-yellow at first, becoming yellow-orange. The saccate volva is smooth, white, with yellow tints on the inner surface, dry,

, firmly attached to the stem. The

is white, staining light yellow, and stuffed with moderately dense material. The spores measure around approximately 9.0–11.8 (8.0–18.0) × 6.1–7.5(5.5–9.0) µm and are broadly

ellipsoid An ellipsoid is a surface that may be obtained from a sphere by deforming it by means of directional scalings, or more generally, of an affine transformation. An ellipsoid is a quadric surface; that is, a surface that may be defined as the ...

to elongate (rarely cylindric) and

inamyloid In mycology a tissue or feature is said to be amyloid if it has a positive amyloid reaction when subjected to a crude chemical test using iodine as an ingredient of either Melzer's reagent or Lugol's solution, producing a blue to blue-black stain ...

. Clamps are common at bases of

basidia A basidium () is a microscopic sporangium (a spore-producing structure) found on the hymenophore of fruiting bodies of basidiomycete fungi which are also called tertiary mycelium, developed from secondary mycelium. Tertiary mycelium is highly-c ...

. Its stem is around 124–137 (12.4-13.7 cm) × 16–23 (1.6-2.3 cm) mm, with a pale yellow to orange color in the upper part of the mushroom's stem with a light yellow on the ground, becoming

brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...

to blackish with handling, stuffed, subcylindric to cylindrical, with irregular ragged patches and strands of orange-yellow felted to membranous material on the outer surface; the stem decoration becomes more intensely orange when handled. The ring is attached in the upper part, subapical, skirt-like, copious,

, persistent, orange-yellow at first, becoming yellow-orange. The saccate volva is smooth, white, with yellowish tints on the inner surface, dry, membranous, firmly attached to the stem. The

is white, staining light yellow, and stuffed with moderately

dense Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the substance's mass per unit of volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' can also be used. Mathematically ...

material.

Edibility

Though not as well known as other

edible mushroom Edible mushrooms are the fleshy and edible fruit bodies of several species of macrofungi (fungi which bear fruiting structures that are large enough to be seen with the naked eye). They can appear either below ground (hypogeous) or above ground ...

species, '' A. basii'' is considered to be edible and has a sweet taste. The odor is somewhat pleasantly fungoid.

Habitat

It occurs in

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...

forests in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. Not confused with ''Amanita laurae'' that grows under oaks, ''Amanita yema'' (under firs) and ''Amanita jacksonii'' that grows in cloud forest

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q38879118 basii Edible fungi Taxa named by Gastón Guzmán

Description

Edibility

Habitat

See also

References