''Amanita basii'' is a

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing Sporocarp (fungi), fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or another food source. ''Toadstool'' generally refers to a poisonous mushroom. The standard for the n ...

of the family ''

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

''.

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. The origin of the word "cap" comes from the Old French word "chapeau" which means "head co ...

is at around wide, with a brown reddish color to "

cadmium orange Cadmium pigments are a class of pigments that contain cadmium. Most of the cadmium produced worldwide has been for use in rechargeable nickel–cadmium batteries, which have been replaced by other rechargeable nickel-chemistry cell varieties ...

" 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 muscles, fats and other loose connective tissues, ...

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 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. B ...

, 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. Its stem is around 12.4–13.7 cm × 1.6–2.3 cm, 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 and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors Orange (colour), orange and black. In the ...

to blackish with handling, stuffed, subcylindric to

cylindrical A cylinder () has traditionally been a Solid geometry, three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a Prism (geometry), prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may ...

, 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 flesh is white, staining light yellow, and stuffed with moderately

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

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 can be obtained from a sphere by deforming it by means of directional Scaling (geometry), scalings, or more generally, of an affine transformation. An ellipsoid is a quadric surface; that is, a Surface (mathemat ...

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 staini ...

. Clamps are common at bases of

basidia A basidium (: basidia) is a microscopic spore-producing structure found on the hymenophore of reproductive bodies of basidiomycete fungi. The presence of basidia is one of the main characteristic features of the group. These bodies are also ...

Similar species

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

Distribution and 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. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

forests in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

Uses

Though not as well known as other

edible mushroom Edible mushrooms are the fleshy fruit bodies of numerous species of macrofungi (fungi that bear fruiting structures large enough to be seen with the naked eye). Edibility may be defined by criteria including the absence of poisonous effect ...

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

References

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

Description

Similar species

Distribution and habitat

Uses

See also

References