Sunday, January 08, 2006

Amanita virosa



Lemone Point, Kingston, Ontario
August 5, 2005
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lovely site--nice and mushroomy. I'd call this Amanita bisporigera, since A. virosa is largely restricted to Europe. It's just as beautiful and just as deadly.

9:00 PM
Kingfisher said...

Hi Kathie:

Thanks for visiting my site and commenting. Both Arora (Mushrooms Demystified) and Bessette, Bessette, and Fischer (Mushrooms of Northeastern North America) state that A. Virosa is common throughout Northeastern North America - in fact all three of the closely related species (virosa, ocrea, and bisporigera occur commonly here). I wasn't aware of the Cornell Mushroom Blog and have added a link to it from my blog. If you would like to comment further about this, please do. Perhaps there have been some new developments since this books were published.

8:27 AM
Anonymous said...

In eastern N. America there's been a long debate on whether the pure white Amanitas are one or two species. A. bisporigera is named for its predominantly two-spored basidia (you need a microscope to see 'em). American specimens with mostly 4-spored basidia have often been called A. virosa. However, that's a European species, and some question whether it occurs in N. America. On this I trust Rod Tulloss, who is monographing Amanita right now--he says there's one eastern species that's variably 2- or 4-spored, and that it differs from A. virosa. It's A. bisporigera. Here's a link to his ongoing Amanita monograph.

6:09 PM

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