| name | Amanita torrendii |
| name status | nomen acceptum |
| author | Justo |
| english name | "Torrend's Dry Caesar" |
| synonyms |
≡Torrendia pulchella Bres.
non Amanita pulchella S. Imai (see Amanita flavipes S. Imai)
non Amanita pulchella (Cooke & Massee) E.-J. Gilbert |
| images |
 1. Amanita torrendii (Torrendia pulchella), Mediterranean region. |
| intro |
Torrendia pulchella was the first secotioid species of Amanita to be described. It is the type species of the genus Torrendia. That it had inamyloid spores, typical Amanita tissue in the stipe, a universal veil very similar to the taxa of what we now call Amanita sect. Caesareae, and common clamp connections in its tissues was noted by Dr. C. Bas (1975). Recent molecular work [e.g., by Dr. H. E. Hallen (unpub. data), and, later, by Justo et al. (2010)] has supported the hypothesis that the present species is an Amanita in section Caesareae. Other secotioid taxa were recently placed in the genus Torrendia; however, taken as a group, the taxa placed in Torrendia are unlikely to have a common ancestor other than one that is also an ancestor to at least some of the agaricoid taxa of sect. Caesareae. Hence, Justo et al. (2010) have moved the relevant taxa of both genera to the genus Amanita. |
| cap | t.b.d. |
| gills | t.b.d. |
| stem | t.b.d. |
| odor/taste | t.b.d. |
| spores | t.b.d. |
| discussion | t.b.d.—contributor |
| brief editors | RET |
| name | Amanita torrendii | ||||||||
| author | Justo. 2010. Mycologia 102: 682. | ||||||||
| name status | nomen acceptum | ||||||||
| english name | "Torrend's Dry Caesar" | ||||||||
| synonyms |
≡Torrendia pulchella Bres. 1902. Atti I. R. Accad. roveret. Sci. 3(8): 132.
non Amanita pulchella S. Imai. 1933. Bot. Mag. (Tokyo) 47: 427. [See Amanita flavipes S. Imai.]
non Amanita pulchella (Cooke & Massee) E.-J. Gilbert. 1941. Icongr. Mycol. (Milan) 27, suppl. 1(2): 203. The editors of this site owe a great debt to Dr. Cornelis Bas whose famous cigar box files of Amanita nomenclatural information gathered over three or more decades were made available to RET for computerization and make up the lion's share of the nomenclatural information presented on this site. | ||||||||
| etymology |
genitive of Latinized name; hence, "of Torrend" or "Torrend's" Honoring the Portuguese mycologist Camillo Torrend. | ||||||||
| MycoBank nos. | 515041, 238603 | ||||||||
| GenBank nos. |
Due to delays in data processing at GenBank, some accession numbers may lead to unreleased (pending) pages.
These pages will eventually be made live, so try again later.
| ||||||||
| lectotypes | LISU | ||||||||
| lectotypifications | Calonge and Almeida. 1992. Bol. Soc. Micol. Madrid 18: 102. [per Neville & Poumarat (2004)] | ||||||||
| revisions |
Malençon. 1955. Rev. Mycol. (Paris) 20: 81-130. Bas. 1975. Beih. Nova Hedwigia 51: 53-60, pl. 11. Neville and Poumarat. 2004. Fungi Europaei 9: 168-176, figs. 30-31, photos 1A-B, pl. 1. | ||||||||
| intro |
The basidiome of this species is secotioid. Olive text indicates a specimen that has not been thoroughly examined (for example, for microscopic details) and marks other places in the text where data is missing or uncertain. The description is largely derived from those of Malençon (1955), Bas (1975), and Neville and Poumarat (2004). The present species has an epigeous, secotioid habit. It is the type species of the genus Torrendia under the name Torrendia pulchella. A change in the specific epithet was necessary when the species was transferred to Amanita by Justo et al. (2010). | ||||||||
| pileus | as white, "cap-like...head" (Bas), more or less hemispherical, 8 - 15 mm wide, with surface depicted by Bas as bearing a faint honeycomb-like pattern; contents of tissue surrounding numerous "roundish cavities" [see gleba, below]; universal veil often present in white patches. | ||||||||
| lamellae | double click in markup mode to edit. | ||||||||
| gleba | as tissue enclosing numerous "roundish cavities" lined with hymenial surfaces and filled with mucous-like substance. | ||||||||
| stipe | 20 - 50 × 2 - 8 mm, white; exannulate; universal veil present at stipe base as more or less wide open, saccate volva. | ||||||||
| odor/taste | neither is reported. | ||||||||
| macrochemical tests |
none reported | ||||||||
| peridium micro | t.b.d. | ||||||||
| pileus context | t.b.d. | ||||||||
| hymenial trama | t.b.d. | ||||||||
| subhymenium | t.b.d. | ||||||||
| basidia | 31 - 50 × 11 - 13 μm, rather irregularly clavate, dominantly 4-, but also 2- to 5-sterimate, with sterigmata 1 - 5.5 μm long; clamps present. | ||||||||
| universal veil | t.b.d. | ||||||||
| stipe context | longitudinally acrophysalidic; filamentous undifferentiated hyphae relatively narrow, branching, thin-walled; acrophysalides large, terminal, dominant; vascular hyphae scattered. | ||||||||
| anatomical figures |
 1. Amanita torrendii (Torrendia pulchella), spores.  2. Amanita torrendii (Torrendia pulchella), stipe context. | ||||||||
| basidiospores |
from (Bas, 1975): [-/-/-] 13.5 - 18.0 × 5.0 - 7.0 μm, (Q = 2.4 - 3.2), hyaline, colorless, smooth, with wall up to 0.5 μm thick, inamyloid, cylindric to bacilliform, slightly asymmetric in side view; apiculus subapical, truncate conic to subcylindric; contents as two nuclei; spores not ejected. from (Neville and Poumarat 2004): [85/-/-] 10.0 - 17.0 (-20) × (4.5-) 5.0 - 7.5 (-9.0) μm, (L' = 13.0 μm; W' = 6.0 μm; Q = 1.70 - 3.0 (-3.20); Q = 2.06 - 2.38), hyaline, colorless, smooth, thin-walled, inamyloid, elongate to bacilliform, most often cylindric; apiculus not very prominent, often obliquely truncate, "central [sic]" [subapical—ed.] [unfortunately apiculus included in length measurement—ed.]; contents neither reported nor illustrated; spores not ejected. | ||||||||
| ecology | Occasionally in troops. In dry sandy soil. Possible associated plants: with Cistus sp. in maquis vegetation and with Pinus pinea, P. pinaster, Quercus rotundifolia, and Q. suber. [per Neville and Poumarat (2004)] | ||||||||
| material examined |
Calonge and Almeida (1992): PORTUGAL: SETÚBAL DISTR.—Setúbal, Bas (1975): MOROCCO: UNKN. PROV. OR PREF.—unkn. loc., s.d. R. Bertault 10792 (L). | ||||||||
| discussion |
In the paper of Bas repeatedly cited above, Bas first introduced his term "acrophysalide" when he was particularly struck by the fact that the microscopic anatomy of the stipe context of Torrendia was indistinguishable from the same tissue in Amanita. Appealing to the above-cited work of Malnçon and to Reijnders (1963: 117-131), Bas made the case the ontogeny of Torrendia pulchella was identical to Amanita ontogeny. As is said many times on this site, among agarics, the latter is unique to the genus Amanita. In subgenus Amanita (defined by the taxa bearing only inamyloid spores), the pileus and stipe of the taxa of sections Caesareae and Vaginatae develop in the center of the primordium and have a totally elongating stipe. Although Bas did not make the comparison, the same is true of the developing pileus and stipe in the primordium of Torrendia pulchella. In addition, with regard to ontogeny, Bas points that the unique schizohymenial ontogeny of Amanita makes for the creation of "cavities" (i.e., the spaces between lamellae) while the cap is still enclosed in the maturing primordium. As seen in the above description, cavities lined with hymenial surfaces are characteristic of the gleba of the present species. At the closing of Bas' paper he write: "It is a very interesting question where the acrophysalidic tissue has its origin. My hypothesis is that it first developed in the Amanitaceae (or ancestors of that family) as one of the possible answers to construction problems connected with the concentrated type of development of the fruitbody (Reijnders 1963: 221). This type of development asked for tissues with structure facilitating a rapid expansion of the stem. In Amanita the acrophysalides invaded nearly all the tissues of the fruitbody, but in section Lepidella, also for other reasons (Bas 1969: 336) considered the most primitive section of Amanita, this invasion has advanced the least. Torrendia pulchella was originally described from Portugal. At the time of Bas' discussion of this species (the type of the genus Torrendia), it was known only from Portugal, Morocco, and Algeria. Neville and Poumarat (2004) report additional collections from France (dép. Landes) and Spain (Prov. Jaén). ... | ||||||||
| citations | —R. E. Tulloss | ||||||||
| editors | RET | ||||||||
Information to support the viewer in reading the content of "technical" tabs can be found here.
| name | Amanita torrendii |
| name status | nomen acceptum |
| author | Justo |
| english name | "Torrend's Dry Caesar" |
| images |
1. Amanita torrendii (Torrendia pulchella), Mediterranean region. |
| anatomical figures |
1. Amanita torrendii (Torrendia pulchella), spores. 2. Amanita torrendii (Torrendia pulchella), stipe context. |
| drawing |
Dr. Cornelis Bas (1975) - (1) "after Malençon", courtesy of Persoonia, Leiden, the Netherlands. Dr. Cornelis Bas - anatomical drawings (1-2) courtesy of Persoonia, Leiden, the Netherlands. |
| name | Amanita torrendii |
| bottom links |
[ Keys & Checklists ] [ Draft description of, & key to, sect. Caesareae ] |
| name | Amanita torrendii |
| bottom links |
[ Keys & Checklists ] [ Draft description of, & key to, sect. Caesareae ] |
Spore data sets and their composite
Each spore data set is intended to comprise a set of measurements from a single specimen made by a single observer; and explanations prepared for this site talk about specimen-observer pairs associated with each data set. Combining more data into a single data set is non-optimal because it obscures observer differences (which may be valuable for instructional purposes, for example) and may obscure instances in which a single collection inadvertently contains a mixture of taxa.
Text and User-Generated Sporographs are published under the Creative Commons License.
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