Michael, I got to this page a few minutes back and saw A. karea as the proposed name, switched tabs to take a look at my notes on karea, decided to look at your spore photo and just got back in time to see you switch the naming back to A. nothofagi. (It’s terrible that I’ve never seen these species myself. I wonderful if I’ll ever get to NZ.) I so much appreciate your posts! And the occasional dried specimens sent from NZ! As you yourself must have noted, the spores were not appropriate to A. karea and the annulus of A. karea is described as white, sometimes with a sordid edge. I just added a new link from the new Amanita Studies website (now hidden and under contruction) to this observation. As always, I want to make sure whether or not the “no herbarium specimen” label on this observation is correct or not. After seeing your spore picture, I wonder if it might not be worthwhile to sample spores of several collection of A. nothofagi to see if the average Q isn’t a little bit higher than one might have projected from the original description…one of those little details in which I am interested.

R.