BRIEF DESCRIPTION: Amanita basiana is a species of pine forest illustrated in 2000 and described in 2001. At present, it is known only from a site near Genoa, Italy.

The cap is 40-75 mm wide; it is globose at first, becoming expanded-convex, with a striate margin (striations taking one-third to one-half of the cap's radius). It is pale gray at first, becoming brownish gray or yellowish brown; it is covered with grayish to brownish, adherent patches or warts.

The gills are usually free, subdistant, white to creamy white, 8-9 mm broad, with a finely floccose edge. The short gills vary in length and are irregularly distributed.

The hollowing stipe is 35 - 90 x 10 - 13 mm, with grayish to brownish squamules and a somewhat bulbous base; its unchanging context is white, often with rusty spots in the bulb. The whitish annulus is often quickly lost; the volvalmaterial is present as a layer on the the upper part of the bulb, sometimes leaving an incomplete ring of tissue on the lower stipe.

The spores measure (8.5-) 10.0 - 13.6 (-26) x (7.5-) 8.0 - 10.7 (-15.3) µm and are broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid (occasionally subglobose and rarely elongate to cylindric) and inamyloid. Clamps are absent from the bases of basidia.

The species is very similar to A. friabilis (Karst.) Bas, known from wet soils in association with alder in Europe. -- R. E. Tulloss & Mido Traverso