after all these years!

Rod, your links to Genbank and BLAST do not work. Could you check them please?

Thanks again.

Links will become active when GenBank actually posts the sequences. This may take ten days or two weeks or more from the time I received the accession numbers.

Rod

Thanks very much for keeping your eye out.

Material from Baja would be very nice to add to the work up of the species.

Very best,

Rod

Next time I see it fruiting whether in my area or northern Baja CA.

Bonni

We have decided to try for more DNA from specimens of this and other species in section Lepidella.

So, again, appreciate your sending us this material.

Very best,

Rod

plus, you save on postage!

I have not yet seen wellsii in the flesh, but frankly would rather see it fresh. I am particularly interested in material from our western states, though. Can’t focus on everything!

Hey Debbie—so funny you just asked because a few days before I had spotted a few over-the-hill specimens withering down the street from me. It was the first time I’ve seen it fruiting at this time of year, but then it’s surprised me several times the last 10 months. Given our recent eccentric climate including actual periodic and measurable rainfall, it has fruited in December, June and July.

If you want, I have 3 diminutive dried specimens from my own yard taken in July that I can send home with David when he comes to speak to the San Diego Myco Soc. in November. (By the way, my recent amanita offer for you was a bit of the the Amanita wellsii (MO 215841) I collected up in the UP last month—it all went to Rod Tulloss…)

and sadly, my 2011 material was also unusable: damp and molded. Darn those hygroscopic amanitas, anyway! they can suck air moisture right through a zip lock bag!

so, on second thought Bonnie, yes, I’d love some of this material next time it pops.

I can wait. I am sure that it will indeed rain again in CA, someday. ;)

My apologies.

Rod

It appears that we don’t have an MO number for the 2014 collection; and that’s why I didn’t try to contact the collector right away. I now see that you are the collector of both the 2011 and 2014 collections, which were both made in Encanta and that I had some confusion in terms of communicating with you.

We did not get any data back for the “proposed fungal barcode” gene with relation to the 2011 collection. The data for the same gene that we got from the 2014 collection was not in good shape.

In trying to answer your question, I noted that the 2014 collection was not even mentioned on the website. That is fixed.

The problems you detected are all mine because of not syncing the returned data to the website correctly and not realizing I needed to respond to you with regard to two different collections.

You were very helpful in terms of diagnosing where I had a gap in understanding and communicating. Thank you, Bonni.

If this is not clear. Please try again!

Very best,

Rod

Hi Rod—Was it the bunch of material I sent Naomi last year or the original batch from 2011 that did not pan out with the DNA? I was amazed in early December to have a lone Amanita “macerisolum” pop up in my parkway after a rare 2 inches of rain. Never saw this mushroom outside of the springtime—sorry I did not collect it for you, but left it in place.

I’ve added 7 more downsized pictures from last March and you are welcome to use any of my photos for the WAO site. If you need higher resolutions I can email them. The new pictures were taken the morning after I picked them and show little remnants of gills still attached that I never noticed before. Will save, dry and send any I may find this spring

Best wishes, Bonni

Rod

is probably distinct from the material in this observation. I have seen the type, which is more gracile than this material. Also, it is said to have a rusty orange or red ring around the lower part of the stem above the bulb. I have seen this only once in a fresh collection in the area of Denver, Colorado. My guess is that subcaligata (like your mushroom) only appears in very wet years. It seems to be quite rare.

Very best,

Rod

I’m sorry to report that the first sample we took from your material did not yield good quality data. We will try again.

We did manage to get sequences from other collections of what I think may be the same species. Some information about the species is now posted on-line:

http://www.amanitaceae.org?Amanita%20macerisolum

I’ll let you know when we know more.

Very best,

Rod

I sure appreciate what you do with these fungi.

Bonni

We have received this material and accessioned it to Rod’s herbarium. We have also scheduled it for DNA sequencing.
-Naomi (working with RET).

And I wish lots of luck with regard to Mary Ann Hawke and her project.

Very best,

Rod

I posted pictures of the recent fruiting (see last 4) which shows 2011 was a wetter year than 2014. These latest mushrooms were preceded by a few late winter storms that interrupted an otherwise continuous dry spell in San Diego.

The “poor soil lepidella”( Amanita sp-C13) has quite similar physical characteristics to our local variety looking at your link’s photos of Arizona specimens. It seems a closer choice to the Encanto variety than the more robust looking pyramid-studded Texas cousin A subcaligata. I can also see why the the A pruittii had been a contender.

We actually have excellent soil in Encanto, just poor overall conditions for fungi. San Diego is a hard place to have a mushroom hobby. The freshest specimen pictured at the bottom was delivered to Mary Ann Hawke of the Scripps Institution at UC San Diego. She has preserved it for the International Barcoding of Life Project (iBOL) for which she has been collecting our local fungi at the University of Guelph in Canada.

We still need to collect dozens of more species plus drum up the money to submit the 94 samples, but when it happens in the future hopefully they can share that DNA info with you. I have about 10 dried ones and will send you most of them.

http://www.amanitaceae.org?Amanita+subcaligata

http://www.amanitaceae.org?Amanita+pruittii

R

Please try again, Bonni. I edited the previous posting.

I sure would like to have more material of your interesting species.

Very best,

Rod

Very sorry for your loss Rod. I dried several more of these from a large fruiting of mostly small mushrooms, about 100 yards from the ones of 2011. Happened upon your address again the other day and wondered if you could use some more. These have been kept dry in a glass jar. Just let me know.

I cannot make the website link below work but would like to see that information if you can redirect me. I could share more of this material if someone else has an interest.

Bonni

Shortly after starting to work on this material, we had a very devastating death in our family. I just realized that the status of this item was open.

I think that A. pruittii can be considered unlikely in this case.

The last work on this material suggests that Amanita “sp-C13” should be considered along with A. subcaligata. See

http://www.amanitaceae.org?Amanita+sp-C13

Sequencing of relevant collection from the Roosevelt herbarium are sampled for sequencing in order to make a sequence comparison of material from the present collection with the morphologically closest taxa.

Very best,

Rod

Collections of Amanita subsect. Vittadiniae are really hard to maintain long term in a herbarium unless you’ve got very tight control over humidity. These critters suck water out of fairly dry air. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Bonni’s material became limp very fast after I opened the packet. I have now re-dried the material and it is sealed up again in the herbarium. A word to the wise. Don’t leave this nice material lying around without protection from humidity. The molds will get into it, and you will have more mold than Amanita with the passage of time.

R.

More likely you have Amanita novinupta, which was called “rubescens” for many years.

Very best,

Rod

This is really wonderful to get all this data up here, including Christian’s new post on the spores. Will get in touch with Rod on those sporographs. Thanks for enlightening us.

I’ll post some more pictures that show closer views. It did seem the mushroom transiently tinted faint pink with handling, especially on the stipes. The seventh picture down illustrates that a bit. It was in no way pronounced as in A rubescens, common in our county.

Bonni

Bonni, can you give us a magnified view of the mature specimen in the center of the top row in the first photo you posted? I’m interested to see whether there are rings of volval material on the stem that have taken on a color as the mushroom aged.

Very best,

Rod

For some reason, I’m blocked from emailing via MO. Bonnie, if you’d like the comparison sporographs, I’ll need you to email me so that I can respond to you and send you the image. Meantime, I’m sending it to Christian.

Rod

Would anyone say that there was a pinkish tint in the centers of the youngest (least brown) caps?

What about in the close-up shot (140050)?

Rod

Spore data doesn’t seem to be enough to wrap this up completely. I think there are four possibilities within Bas’ stirps Vittadinii, which is where I think this species would be placed in Bas’ 1969 scheme. One is not known from North America (A. ameghinoi). Amanita pruittii is possible, but the spores of the present taxon seem to be larger than one would expect. The only one of the possible taxa known from southern California (and the best match based only on spores) is A. subcaligata. The fourth possibility is A. prairiicola. Then it’s possible that the taxa is undescribed, but I’m not giving a high probability to that eventuality at the moment.

I think that I found mostly mature spores from the inner ends of the lamellae where sporulation occurs first. The outer ends of the gills in the material have no maturing basidia. So this specimen (which must be one of the larger ones in the pictures) was not only just beginning sporulation. Here’s the data:

[20/1/1] 10.5 – 12.1 (-14.0) x (7.5-) 8.2 – 9.5 (-11.0) um, (avg. length = 11.3 um; avg. width = 8.8 um; Q = (1.22-) 1.23 – 1.40 (-1.42); avg. Q = 1.29), colorless, hyaline, smooth, thin-walled, amyloid, broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid, often at least somewhat adaxially flattened; apiculus sublateral, cylindric, proportionately low and broad; contents mono- to multiguttulate with plentiful additional granules; color in deposit unknown.

Bonni, I will try to email you a sporograph generated from the above data in comparison with A. prairiicola, A. subcaligata, and A. pruittii — the three closest N. American matches within stirps Vittadinii based on spore size and shape. If you could post it at full size, I hope that the fine print will be readable. The sporograph was generated by using the sporograph generation link from http://www.amanitaceae.org/?stirps+Vittadinii [in the top of the green column on the RIGHT of the page] and then using the ?User+sporograph page ability to manually add a sporograph based on user data. Sporographs for poorly matching and/or non-North American were then deleted and the data for Bonni’s collection was dragged to the top of the list, placing the red hexagon representing her taxon in the top layer of the composite sporograph image.

Very best,

Rod

measuring some spores… It will be interesting to see how well they match up!

I specifically looked for clamps at the base of the basidia, and decided that they were present, but they were more inconspicuous to my eyes (inexperienced in Amanita as they are). The basidioles were more obviously clamped, and the squashed basidia definitely showed the tell-tale “notch” where the clamps disconnected, but only one or two showed the clamp itself. I will check for volva cells in a bit.

Spores are amyloid.

It’s an Amanita of subsection Vittadiniae — the group of most “primitive” (basal) species of section Lepidella as well as of the genus as a whole.

Points to Nathan. If he isn’t right on, he got the right subsection at the very least.

The lamella trama is bilateral, divergent.

The dried specimen is strongly hygroscopic…becoming completely limp in half and hour (we’re having a sort of gray, drizzling day here; so the humidity is fairly high. I’ve put the material on the dryer to keep it from developing mold…if that is possible…while I start to work on identification.

The basidia clearly bear clamps and the spores are broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid. I’m starting to measure them now.

Christian, see if you can get some good idea of the size of the elongate inflated cells that make up the volva…in chains. These sort of cells are very typical of subsect. Vittadiniae. I can see them in the material I have, but so far they have been rather fragmented.

Only the basal amanitas have a inflated cells of this form and in this structural (chain) arrangement. The subsection contains groups with clamped basidia as well as groups with unclamped basidia. The downward tapering stem that is clear in the specimen that Bonni sent me sometimes caused species of this group to be originally described as Armillaria. The arrangement of volva somewhat like radially grooved shingles (if not too decayed in situ) caused several of the taxa in this group to be originally described as lepiotas (broad sense of the first half of the last century).

More when I have more,

Rod

Two thin slices that look well-dried arrived this p.m.

Rod

All your interest is sure appreciated as this mushroom has remained a mystery each time I encounter it. Debbie Viess will also get part of a third specimen, so you each have a different example.

Looking forward to hearing what you folks have learned—such as, is this even an amanita?? Thanks.

thanks, Bonni!

I will examine them on Tuesday, along with that putative A. breckonii (Ron), and that little Tricholoma (Noah).

Rod – is there anything in particular you’d like me to look for on these? I was just going to do a general checkup on Amanita microcharacters – how does this set differ for Lepidella?

I also had seen this 1998 reference to the A pruittii before I posted:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/...

The helpful emails I’ve received also are appreciated—thanks for the interest. And it is great to hear from Christian Schwarz, who came up here in Encanto!! I will send material requested to him and Rod.

gracias, Bonni

Bonni,

I’d like to look at the dried material if we can arrange that. There is more than one smallish Lepidella in southern California that is poorly known. This could be A. pruittii, but there are other possibilities.

Very best,

Rod Tulloss