name | Amanita polypyramis |
name status | nomen acceptum |
author | (Berk. & M. A. Curtis) Sacc. |
english name | "Plateful of Pyramids Lepidella" |
synonyms |
=Amanita odorifera (Murrill) Murrill
=Amanita alexandri Guzmán |
images |
1. Amanita polypyramis, Tennessee, U.S.A. 2. Amanita polypyramis, Ocean Co., New Jersey, U.S.A. (RET 517-9). 3. Amanita polypyramis, Great Smoky Mtns. Nat. Pk., Tennessee, U.S.A. 4. Amanita polypyramis, Great Smoky Mtns. Nat. Pk., Tennessee, U.S.A. 5. Amanita polypyramis, Great Smoky Mtns. Nat. Pk., Tennessee, U.S.A. 6. Amanita polypyramis, Hawn St. Pk., Ste. Genevieve Co., Missouri, U.S.A. |
cap |
The cap of Amanita polypyramis is 70 - 180+ mm wide (and sometimes much larger) convex to plane, white, dry to subviscid, appendiculate, with a nonsulcate margin. The cao us 12,5 - 17 mm thick. It has a white, soft, pulverulent-subfloccose layer of volva on expansion of cap breaking up into small, conical warts up to 2 mm high and broad or shapeless, small, soft warts to patches or merely forming a flocculence over the whole cap or parts of it. |
gills |
The gills are crowded to subdistant, free to adnexed or just touching the stem, cream to yellowish cream in mass, white to cream to sordid cream in side view, and 7- - 13.5 mm broad. The short gills are attenuate. |
stem |
The stem is 76 - 180 × 10 - 35 mm (length includes length of bulb), equal or tapering upward, solid, white, usually exannulate, completely pulverulent-verruculose when young, and glabrescent with age. The stipe's bulb is 37 - 57 x 39- - 49 mm and subglobose to turbinate to irregularly oblong. The ring is copious, but fragile, white, decorated with large and small pieces of the volva's limbus internus on the underside. |
spores | The spores measure (7.0-) 9.1 - 12.9 (-17.5) × (5.2-) 5.9 - 7.6 (-9.5) µm and are amyloid and ellipsoid to elongate (rarely cylindric). Clamps are absent at bases of basidia. |
discussion |
The smell of this species is quite strong and in the "decaying protein" group. Bas (1969) created a stirps Polypyramis that includes the present species as well as A. boudieri Barla and A. pulverulenta Beeli. Recently, A. yenii Zhu L. Yang & C. M. Chen was described as belonging to the same stirps. The species was originally described from South Carolina, U.S.A. and is now known from the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey to tropical Oak (Quercus) forest in Costa Rica. The species can be recognized by the plentiful small pyramids on the cap and bulb and by its tendency to produce very large fruiting bodies. The name A. alexandri Guzman was applied to diseased material of A. polypyramis as demonstrated by Morales-Torres et al. (1999). The strong odor of cheese from the "A. alexandri" specimens is associated with extensive penetration of the fruiting body by an as yet unidentified hyphomycete.—R. E. Tulloss |
brief editors | RET |
name | Amanita polypyramis | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
author | (Berk. & M. A. Curtis) Sacc. 1887. Syll. Fung. 5: 18. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
name status | nomen acceptum | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
english name | "Plateful of Pyramids Lepidella" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
synonyms |
≡Agaricus polypyramis Berk. & M. A. Curtis. 1853. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 2 12: 417.
=Amanita candida Peck. 1897. Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 24: 137. non Amanita candida
Pers. (≡Amanita mappa)
=Amanita odorifera (Murrill) Murrill. 1943. Mycologia 35: 433. ≡Venenarius odoriferus Murrill. 1943. Mycologia 35: 427.
=Amanita alexandri Guzmán. 1975. Beih. Nova Hedwigia 51: 106, pl. 26, figs. 21-26. The editors of this site owe a great debt to Dr. Cornelis Bas whose famous cigar box files of Amanita nomenclatural information gathered over three or more decades were made available to RET for computerization and make up the lion's share of the nomenclatural information presented on this site. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MycoBank nos. | 171989, 452870, 215466, 284064, 291947, 308534 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GenBank nos. |
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holotypes | A. polypyramis—K. A. candida—NYS (implicit). V. odoriferus—FLAS. A. alexandri—ENCB; isotype, MICH. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
type studies |
A. candida—Jenkins. 1978a. Mycotaxon 7: 27. Venenarius odoriferus—Jenkins. 1979. Mycotaxon 10: 184. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
revisions |
Bas. 1969. Persoonia 5: 439, figs. 173-176. Morales-Torres et al. 1999. Mycotaxon 73: 477-491, figs. 1-18. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
intro |
The following text may make multiple use of each data field. The field may contain magenta text presenting data from a type study and/or revision of other original material cited in the protolog of the present taxon. Macroscopic descriptions in magenta are a combination of data from the protolog and additional observations made on the exiccata during revision of the cited original material. The same field may also contain black text, which is data from a revision of the present taxon (including non-type material and/or material not cited in the protolog). Paragraphs of black text will be labeled if further subdivision of this text is appropriate. Olive text indicates a specimen that has not been thoroughly examined (for example, for microscopic details) and marks other places in the text where data is missing or uncertain. The following material not directly from (Bas 1969) or another cited researcher is based upon original research by R. E. Tulloss. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
pileus | (25-) 40 - 170 mm wide, white to whitish, convex to plano-convex, smooth, dry; context white, firm, 5 - 28 mm thick over stipe, unchanging when cut or bruised, ??; margin nonstriate, appendiculate; universal veil as fine pulverulence and/or small pyramidal warts becoming flocculence toward margin, white, sometimes brownish to brown in older specimens, densely placed, detersile, with polygonal base, up to 6 mm high. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
lamellae | free to subadnate, close, white to beige to yellowish white (3A2) in mass, becoming sordid or more yellowish in age, with smooth edge, 7 -15 mm broad; lamellulae attenuate, tapering evenly. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
stipe | 60 - 180 × 10 - 40 mm, white, cylindric or expanded slightly at midpoint, floccose-pruinose above to concentrically squamulose or verrucose below, longitudinally striate, ??; bulb 40 - 80 × 30 - 60 mm, globose to subnapiform to napiform, sometimes with longitudinal fissures, ??; context white, firm, solid, unchanging when cut or bruised; partial veil rather thick, white, submembranous, weakly structured, with floccose or coarsely verrucose warts on lower side, may remain in large patches over lamellae, often absent in mature material; universal veil in rings of fine warts or pulverulence encircling upper half or more of bulb, white. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
odor/taste | Odor like soap or "chloride of lime" or faintly unpleasant or slightly pungent or, at least in Mexico, liable to attack by fungus ("A. alexandri") and then producing cheese-like odor. Taste not recorded in U.S. material, mild to unpleasant in Mexican material of "A. alexandri." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
macrochemical tests |
FeSO4 - negative on lamellae. KOH - somewhat yellowish on pileipellis, negative on context. Spot test for tyrosinase (paracresol) - negative throughout basidiome. Spot test for laccase (syringaldazine) - positive in pileus context and in inverted “V” pattern through length of stipe in very young material; positive throughout center of stipe context in mature material; positive on base of bulb in all specimens tested. Test vouchers: Morales Torres s.n.; Tulloss 10-25-86-F, & -I, 10-26-86-E. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
pileipellis | [Morales Torres: "consisting of gelatinized suprapellis (colorless) 120 - 195 µm thick and an ungelatinized subpellis (orangish yellow) 190 - 270 µm thick"] at first lacking obvious separation into sub- and suprapellis, 55 - 95 µm thick, with little or no gelatinization at surface, gelatinization zone developing below surface with some hyphae of pileipellis remaining attached to base of wart above gelatinization zone, sometimes yellow-brown in mass; filamentous, undifferentiated hyphae ?? µm wide, ??, densely packed vertically; vascular hyphae ?? µm wide, sinuous, ??. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
pileus context | t.b.d. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
lamella trama | bilateral; wcs = 75 - 85 µm; ??; subhymenial base having frequently branching structure, with some partially inflated intercalary segments, with angle of divergence shallow, ??; filamentous, undifferentiated hyphae ?? µm wide, ?; divergent, terminal inflated cells ?? (e.g., 42 × 17.5 µm); vascular hyphae ?? µm wide, ??; clamps not observed. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
subhymenium | wst-near = 60± µm; wst-far = ?? µm; ??; ramose to inflated ramose to subcellular, more frequently branching than subhymenial base, with basidia arising from ??. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
basidia | t.b.d. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
universal veil | On pileus: with elements having vertical orientation; filamentous, undifferentiated hyphae ?? µm wide, branching, plentiful, with some having yellowish walls; inflated cells clavate to ellipsoid to ovoid to subfusiform to broadly subfusiform-rostrate to subpyriform to globose (up to 65 × 40 µm), with more elongate cells concentrated near base of wart (e.g., 50 × 19.6 µm) as reported by Bas (1969), thin-walled, terminal singly or in short locally subparallel chains, ??; vascular hyphae ?? µm wide. On stipe base: ??. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
stipe context | longitudinally acrophysalidic; filamentous, undifferentiated hyphae ?? µm wide, ??; acrophysalides up to 181× 25 µm, occasionally concatenate; vascular hyphae ?? µm wide, ??. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
partial veil | filamentous, undifferentiated hyphae ?? µm wide, ??; inflated cells ??; vascular hyphae 4.9 - 14.0 µm wide, ??. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
lamella edge tissue | not described. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
basidiospores |
Bas (1969): [55/6/6] (9.5-) 10.0 - 13.0 × (5.5-) 6.5 - 8.0 (-9.0) μm, (Q = (1.20-) 1.50 - 1.95; Q = 1.65 - 1.75), colorless, hyaline, thin-walled, amyloid, broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid to elongate, apiculus not described; contents guttulate to subgranular; pale cream in deposit. from type study of A. candida by Jenkins (1978a): [-/-/1] 11.0 - 12.5 × 5.9 - 7.0 μm, (Q = 1.56 - 2.0; Q' = 1.80), hyaline, thin-walled amyloid, ellipsoid to elongate to cylindric, often adaxially flattened; apiculus sublateral, cylindric; contents guttulate; color in deposit not recorded. from type study of Amanita odorifera by Jenkins (1979): [-/-/1] 10.2 - 11.7 × 6.3 - 7.8 μm, (Q = 1.40 - 1.86; Q' = 1.63), hyaline, thin-walled, amyloid, ellipsoid to elongate, often adaxially flattened; apiculus sublateral, short, cylindric; contents guttulate; color in deposit not recorded. composite of data from all material revised by RET: [325/15/13] (7.0-) 9.1 - 12.9 (-17.5) × (5.2-) 5.9 - 7.6 (-9.5) µm, (L = (9.0-) 10.0 - 12.1 µm; L’ = 11.3 µm; W = 6.3 - 7.2 (-7.4) µm; W’ = 6.8 µm; Q = (1.11-) 1.38 - 1.94 (-2.08); Q = (1.35-) 1.50 - 1.81; Q’ = 1.68), hyaline, thin-walled, smooth, amyloid, broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid to elongate, occasionally cylindric, rarely subglobose, adaxially flattened, sometimes expanded at one end; apiculus sublateral, cylindric; contents mono- or multiguttulate; white in deposit. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ecology | Solitary to subgregarious. Costa Rica: At 750 m elev. Associated with Quercus oleoides. Guerrero, México: At 2120 m elev. In Pinus-Quercus forest. Hidalgo, México: At 2000* m elev. In Pinus-Quercus forest or in Quercus forest in clay-sandy-ferruginous brown-orange soils. Edo. de México, México: At 1995 m elev. In Pinus-Quercus forest beginning to recover from extensive logging. Maryland, U.S.A.: In coastal plain, sandy soil of 4.5 - 5.2 pH, in mixed forest of Pinus taeda, Quercus falcata, Cornus florida, and Liriodendron tulipifera interspersed with Kalmia latifolia and bordering on swamp with Taxodium distichum. Massachusetts: In sandy coastal plain in Pinus-Quercus forest. Missouri: Under Pinus or under Quercus. New Jersey, U.S.A.: In coastal plain. In Pinus-Quercus barrens in sandy soil. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
material examined |
Bas (1969): U.S.A.:
ALABAMA—Lee Co. - Auburn, type study of Jenkins (1978a): U.S.A.: ALABAMA—Lee Co. - Auburn, type study of Jenkins (1979): U. S. A.: FLORIDA— Alachua Co. - Gainesville, 11.vii.1938 West, Arnold, & W. A. Murrill F 17684 (holotype of Venenarius odoriferus, FLAS). RET: COSTA RICA: GUANACASTE—Ctn. Unkn. - ca. Liberia, Area Conservación Guanacaste, Rincon de la Vieja, sector Sta. Maria, sendero a Agua Termales, 3 km W de estacion [10°45’53” N/ 85°18’12” W], 26.vi.1997 R. E. Halling, G. M. Mueller, S. Huhndorf, & Quist [Halling] 7750 (NY). MÉXICO: GUERRERO—Mpio. Chichihualco - "Los Morros," 2.viii.1980 S. Alpizar Valfre s.n. (FCME 001153). HIDALGO—Pachuca - Agua Blanca, 17.viii.1969 J. Gimate 47 (paratype of A. alexandri, ENCB); 1 km SW Huasca, 28.vii.1968 G. Guzmán 6819 (holotype of A. alexandri, ENCB), 19.x.1969 G. Guzmán 8275 (paratype of A. alexandri, ENCB); Mpio. Tlalmimilolpan - 25.viii.1987 E. Morales Torres s.n. (FCME 02776, as "A. alexandri"). JALISCO— Guadalajara - La Primavera [20.6556 N/103.5725 W, 1946 m], 09.vii.2016 Alan Rockefeller s.n. [other number,mushroomobserver.org #244324] (RET 774-3) . EDO. MÉXICO—Mpio. Zincantepec - rd. to Parq. Estatal Nanchititla [18°53’09” N/ 100°21’38” W], R. E. Tulloss 7-6-96-A (RET 260-5). U.S.A.: ARKANSAS—Unkn. Co. - unkn. loc., [There is another relevant collection determined as the present species in MICH (n.v.)] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
discussion |
The pileus of this impressive species may reach dinner plate size, and the stipe may suggest a knobbed club the size of an old-fashioned policeman’s stick. The pileus is covered with small pyramidal warts, and the bulb of the stipe is densely ringed with even smaller warts. The annulus is thick, but easily falls away and is lost. The hymenium of the Hidalgo collection examined was deformed (labyrinthine). Morales Torres et al. (1999) proposed the synonymy of A. alexandri and A. polypyramis on the grounds that all the collections of the former examined (including the holotype) differed from the latter only in the odor and, occasionally, deformation of the lamellae. They proposed that both differences were caused by a pathogen. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
citations | —R. E. Tulloss | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
editors | RET | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Information to support the viewer in reading the content of "technical" tabs can be found here.
name | Amanita polypyramis |
name status | nomen acceptum |
author | (Berk. & M. A. Curtis) Sacc. |
english name | "Plateful of Pyramids Lepidella" |
images |
1. Amanita polypyramis, Tennessee, U.S.A. 2. Amanita polypyramis, Ocean Co., New Jersey, U.S.A. (RET 517-9). 3. Amanita polypyramis, Great Smoky Mtns. Nat. Pk., Tennessee, U.S.A. 4. Amanita polypyramis, Great Smoky Mtns. Nat. Pk., Tennessee, U.S.A. 5. Amanita polypyramis, Great Smoky Mtns. Nat. Pk., Tennessee, U.S.A. 6. Amanita polypyramis, Hawn St. Pk., Ste. Genevieve Co., Missouri, U.S.A. |
photo |
Dr. L. R. Hesler - (1) Tennessee, U.S.A., with permission of Dr. R. H. Petersen, L. R. Hesler Herbarium, Univ. of Tenn., Knoxville. Cornelius Hogenbirk - (2) Ocean Co., New Jersey, U.S.A. RET - (3-5) Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, U.S.A. Patrick Harvey - (6) Hawn State Park, Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, U.S.A. (RET 517-9) Patrick Harvey - (7) Hawn State Park Island, Missouri, U.S.A. (RET 517-9) [Note: Untrimmed and unedited images may be found at mushroomobserver.org/111841] |
name | Amanita polypyramis |
bottom links |
[ Keys & Checklists ] |
name | Amanita polypyramis |
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[ Keys & Checklists ] |
Each spore data set is intended to comprise a set of measurements from a single specimen made by a single observer; and explanations prepared for this site talk about specimen-observer pairs associated with each data set. Combining more data into a single data set is non-optimal because it obscures observer differences (which may be valuable for instructional purposes, for example) and may obscure instances in which a single collection inadvertently contains a mixture of taxa.