We have begun to look at Coker’s original collections of lavendula, especially the ones that mention lavender staining in the collector’s notes and are accompanied by photographs that were printed in the original description. The two collections satisfying these conditions both yielded spores that match sp-lavendula02.

Therefore, Patrick’s photographs are very likely to depict specimens of the “true” lavendula. A comparison of the sporograph of modern collections of sp-lavendula02 to the sporograph based on spores from 1912-1914 collections in Coker’s herbarium in Chapel Hill is to be found in the “discussion” data field at the bottom of the technical tab on this WAO page:

http://www.amanitaceae.org?Amanita_sp-lavendula02

Very best,

R

http://www.amanitaceae.org?Amanita+sp-lavendula02

Comparison of some relevant sporographs is presently on this page:

http://www.amanitaceae.org?Amanita+sp-lavendula03

More news will be coming in the coming months concerning the taxon to which this collection apparently belongs.

Very best,

Rod

the process of separating the eastern North American citrina-like taxa isn’t necessarily a private party. We do need BOTH photographs and well-written field notes (please use the collection form available on the WAO site).

http://www.amanitaceae.org/?Studying+Morphology#forms

[go to the bottom of the page if the “#forms” doesn’t work for you]

An example that is filled in for a species of sect. Validae is available on the same page to help you get started. If there are problems contact me via the “?Contact us” page on WAO.

Very best,

Rod

I want to update you on this collection.

Dr. Karen Hughes (Univ. Tenn., Knoxville) has been kind enough to do some sequencing of this collection and other material of A. citrina f. lavendula from my herbarium.

I’ve begun to put up some bare bones background regarding Dr. Hughes recent study of material that was identified as A. citrina f. lavendula on the WAO site. There will be a lot more work necessary in order to start to work out what is going on. Any new information will be posted here:

http://www.amanitaceae.org?Amanita+citrina+f.+lavendula

The thing that first fascinated Dr. Hughes was that a goodly set of a “putative” lavendula from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park appeared to be members of a cluster of infraspecific hybrids. She and her colleagues have written a paper on the subject of infraspecific hybrids that is now in the review process prior to (hoped for) publication. Her hypothesis relating to lavendula is summarised very briefly on the techtab of the above cited page.

The two other lavender-staining-in-the-presence-of-cold, citrina-like taxa have very straight forward DNA showing minimal (if any) variation in key parts used for ID.

For the moment, Dr. Hughes has proposed a simple numbering for the taxa she has found; so I am simply going to use the names “sp-lavendula01,” “sp-lavendula02,” and “sp-lavendula03” for the three taxa. It happens that this guy (MO 81042) is “sp-lavendula02.”

So now we need to get full annotation of fresh material to try to develop macro and micro descriptions of the three taxa to see if we an separate them morphologically.

I don’t expect the process to be very fast; but it can be followed on the above page at WAO.

Thanks for the collection with the photo documentation. Nice find.

Very best,

Rod

http://mushroomobserver.org/81876?q=92fG

Nice find!
I recently found an Amanita citrina f. lavendula with purple staining on the cap too!
http://mushroomobserver.org/81876?q=92fG
There’s the link if you want to check it out.

I’ve got the purple one, another full sized A. citrina, and a button drying for you. They were all found in Hawn State Park, along the trails.

Thanks,
Patrick

Hey, Patrick. You really got the lavender to stand up and say howdy. Nice!

If you get a chance to dry one with lavender and one without (as in last photo), I’d like to see what the DNA has to say in the two cases.

Rod