vaginate amanitas come on here in my yard, they may keep coming for 3 months or more. I have found what is either the same or similar growing in areas featuring a variety of differnet trees. But (almost?) always in open grassy areas. The one seen here occurs where one oak sapling (15 feet high) is in the vicinity. Makes me wonder, though, if maybe this smallish amanita (expanded cap diameter generally less than 2 inches) associates with grass?

The buried volval sac is difficult to collect.

I got a couple others yesterday, and I’ll post them as seperate obses.

I went and looked at the Ms. description I have for “old 17.”

Dave’s mushroom is something I recognizeable as part of old 17. I did have it lumped in with a large number of collections that now appear to me to be different (just looked at my last attempt to compile all the field notes and lab notes into one description and am really uncomfortable with it). Old 17 really seems a problem to me now…like the “three-headed calf” at the county fair. The collections range from 1984 to the present, and the earliest collections (from an arboretum) just don’t seem to me to be the same as the more recent ones (that look like Dave’s photo. The collections are from a fairly large geographical area. At some point I seem to have put several possibly/probably different ellipsoid-spored species together. Doesn’t seem completely believable to me now.

I just saw this species yesterday or the day before on a morning walk here in Roosevelt (on lawn under oak). All the Roosevelt specimens I have in the herbarium seem to me to be the same species (I remember collecting them all)…very much like the specimen Dave photographed for this observation. In the (hopefully) near future, I’ll see what it would take to pull all the notes related only to the Roosevelt collections and use that to restart the idea of understanding the ellipsoid-spored Vaginatae in the NE U.S. It is an interesting group and some of the species can be rather common in their seasons.

Very best,

Rod

You are correct about the number, David.

I became concerned that I had mixed two different taxa under that number and didn’t post what I thought might be mixed data. I’m pretty sure now that I did have two things mixed. One of the two taxa has a cap that becomes very distinctivelly dark and metallic which reminds me of wrought iron after it has cooled. (My high school actually had a forge shop. No, I wasn’t particularly good at it.)

The (or a) second taxon could very well be the one in your picture.

Both occurred almost exclusively under oaks. They are small, so they seem common in lawns, but that could be because the grass is short enough so that you can see them. Both had spores that had average Q ellipsoid (usually between 1.3 and 1.6). The one that looks like the one in these present photos is just starting to show in lawns here in Central NJ. I’ve noticed that squirrels will eat the cap off and leave the stark, white stem standing. I think I remember that the volval sac sometimes is hard to collect with the stem.

I’m not sure how soon I can get to this, but this really is one of the taxa that ought to be sorted out and posted on WAO.

Good memory, David.

very best,

Rod