Amanita cinnamomescens

The cap of Amanita cinnamomescens is 73 - 180 mm wide, usually orange-brown over the center and throughout the cap in unexpanded specimens (infrequently, with pigment failing to develop in some sectors--see photos on left and right above), orange to orangish tan to yellowish tan to grayish yellow to pale brownish ochraceous toward the margin, with ridges in the striate region concolorous with the center and with yellow-orange grooves, pale brownish ochraceous in age, irregularly ovoid to campanulate at first, then convex or plano-convex, finally planar or subconcave, umbonate, entirely smooth or with slight wrinkling around the umbo, moist, with a striate margin (35 - 50⁺% of the radius), somewhat incurved at first, remaining decurved even when the cap is fully expanded, nonappendiculate. Volval remnants are absent. The flesh is orange below the cap skin, then fading to yellow-orange to white above the gills, with a white portion becoming grayish yellow to yellowish gray when cut or bruised.

Gills are free, close, pale yellow in side view, up to 6 mm broad, with some reverse forking, with yellow-orange and flocculose edge or occasionally irregular and darkening with age or becoming light brown or orange-brown to dark brown on bruising. The short gills are truncate to rounded truncate, common, unevenly distributed, and of diverse lengths.

The stem is 100 - 300 × 10 - 23 mm, sometimes pale yellowish at first, orange-yellow to yellow-orange to pale ochraceous brown in mature material, narrowing upward slightly, slightly flaring at the top of the stem, floccose-fibrillose, with fibrous squamules orangish tan, becoming ochraceous brown to brownish orange and finally dark brown. The ring is superior, membranous, copious, skirt-like, at first concolorous with the stem, then darkening as do the squamules on the stem, in age darker than stem and cap, finely striate above, felted below, eventually collapsing on the stem. The saccate volva is up to 67 × 27 mm, ellipsoid, rather fleshy, very thick proportionately, leathery and white on exterior surface, connected only to very bottom of stem in mature material. The flesh is pale yellow, unchanging when cut or bruised, and hollow.

The spores measure (7.8-) 8.5 - 11.8 (-18.0) × (6.0-) 6.4 - 8.9 (-11.9) µm and are ellipsoid, occasionally broadly ellipsoid, infrequently elongate and inamyloid. Clamps are present at bases of basidia.

This species was originally described from Pakistan and Nepal and still known only from these countries. In the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, this species is montane occurring between 2400 and 2600 meters elevation and associated with fir (Abies pindrow). Habitat in Nepal is unknown.

This species is sold in markets in Nepal.

The two most similar species in Amanitastirps Hemibapha are Amanita javanica (Corner & Bas) T. Oda, C. Tanaka & Tsuda and Amanita similis Boedijn in the sense of Japanese authors. —R. E. Tulloss, S. H. Iqbal, A. N. Khalid, and L. Possiel

In a provisional key to taxa of Amanita stirps Hemibapaha (open), Tulloss segregates a group of taxa (18 as of 9 March 2010) with

• 95% of spores having length ≤ 12.0 µm and not having 95% of spores with length ≤ 10.0 µm
• Q > 1.3
• Q ≥ 1.35
• Q' > 1.35
• Q < 1.55 in at least 90% of specimens reviewed

in which A. cinnamomescens is included.  Taxa described in this group to date include A. javanica (Corner & Bas) Oda et al. (1999: 64), described from Java; A. hayalyuy Arora & G. H. Shepard (2008), known from Chiapas, Mexico; and A. masasiensis Härk. & Saarim. in Härk. et al. (1994), described from Tanzania, and the most unlike A. cinnamomescens.  Amanita cinnamomescens differs from all the taxa in the group by it cinnamon staining of the basidiome.

• Amanita hemibapha subsp. javanica Corner & Bas (1962) was based on A. hemibapha sensu Boedijn (1951: 320-322).  Boedijn’s description is of an entity with smaller basidiomes (stipe ≤ 130 × 12.5 mm; pileus ≤ 85 mm wide), smaller basidia (≤ 36 µm long), dirty white pileus context, an Orange-Buff (8.5YR 7.2/9.0) partial veil, and an Apricot Yellow (2.5Y 7.8/9.5) to Empire Yellow (4Y 8.2/10.0) to Pinard Yellow (5.0Y 8.4/8.0) stipe decorated at first with Orange-Buff squamules before becoming glabrous.
• Amanita hayalyuy ?.
• Amanita masasiensis has a yellow-orange pileus with a red-orange disc.  The pileus is hemispheric in early development, lacks an umbo, and may become centrally depressed at maturity.  According to its protolog, its basidiomes are considerably smaller than those of the present taxon, with a pileus ≤ 70 mm wide and stipe ≤ 70 × 11 mm.  The stipe is pale yellow.  Trees associated with the African species are all indigenous to miombo woodland [e.g., Uapaca (Phyllanthaceae) and Brachystegia (Fabaceae)] at less than 1,000 m elev. and do not include members of the Pinaceae or Fagaceae.  No changes in color with aging of the basidiome are reported for A. masasiensis, and its value for Q’ = 1.51.

The thickness of the suprapellis of A. cinnamomescens in well-preserved exsiccata probably falls near the upper end of the range given above.  The thinnest examples of suprapellis were found on specimens with considerable infestation of mold that may have destroyed part of the suprapellis.

The Nepali material was purchased in a market and, hence, was apt to experience drying or other stress prior to time it was purchased, annotated, and dried.  This may have caused the spores to be slightly narrower than might otherwise be expected.  Conditions surrounding the collection and drying of Khalid 481994 are not recorded.  Khalid 81196 took 8 hours to dry thoroughly at a distance of 10 cm from a room heater.

There were some "giant spores" present in Khalid 481994b and in two specimens of Khalid 68000.  No spores could be found on the immature material of Khalid 481994a.

Tulloss et al. (2001) referred to the present species as "Amanita sp. PAK2."

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[ Draft description of, & key to, sect. Caesareae ]