BRIEF DESCRIPTION: The cap of Amanita bulbosa var. bulbosa is 62 - 95 mm wide, white, hemispheric to plano-convex, tacky, shiny to subshiny, with a nonstriate margin, incurved or slightly downcurved. The volva is present as white, staining brown patches up to 12.5 mm wide, fibrillose and easily removable. The flesh is 4 - 7 mm thick over the stem, thinning evenly towards the margin, white, sometimes watery in damaged areas.

The gills are free, narrowly adnate, subcrowded, 5 - 10 mm broad, pale cream in mass, off-white with a faint grayish tint in side view, with a decurrent line on the stem. The short gills are rounded subtruncate to subtruncate and plentiful.

The stem is 65 - 115 × 12 - 23 mm, white, slightly narrowing upward, barely flaring at the top, hollow to stuffed in the lower third of the stem. The bulb is 23 - 32 × 22 - 36 mm, globose to subglobose, soft, easily compressed with fingers, with a subabrupt/marginate top. The ring is membranous, subsuperior, white, darkening on the margin, skirt-like, faintly striate on the upperside, radially fibrillose on the lower side, with a thickened edge. The volva is either a low white rim on the outer edge of the flattened top of the bulb or arranged in very abbreviated broken collars. The flesh is white.

Spores measured by RET of A. bulbosa var. bulbosa are as follows: (7.0-) 7.6 - 8.5 (-9.0) × (6.5-) 7.2 - 7.9 (-8.0) µm and are globose to subglobose, rarely broadly ellipsoid or ellipsoid, and amyloid. Clamps are absent from bases of basidia. Neville and Poumarat (2004) provide the following spore measurements based on a larger sample size: (7.5-) 8 - 9.5 (-10) × (6.5-) 7 - 8.5 (-9) µm and are globose to subglobose to broadly ellipsoid, rarely ellipsoid.

The taxon was described from Germany (Bavaria) and is known from Europe and western Asia. A citrine-yellow variety of the present taxon [A. bulbosa var. citrina (Schaeff.) Gillet] was also described from Bavaria and has the same known range. The Scottish material collected and examined by RET comes from a pure stand of European Beech (Fagus silvatica). Neville and Poumarat (2004) state that this taxon usually occurs from the end of summer to the end of autumn and in the same habitats as its variety citrina at altitudes up to 1200 meters. They further state that it is also found in broad-leaved forests including  European Beech, Chestnut (Castanea sativa), Oaks (Quercus suber), and Eucalyptus glabulus; sometimes with Pines (Pinus pinaster and P. strobus); and mixed forests of European Beech and Spruce (Picea abies).

In addition, the reader may wish to compare the present taxon with the following: A. citrina f. lavendula (Coker) Veselý, A. citrina var. grisea (Hongo) Hongo, and A. sinocitrina Zhu L. Yang, Z. H. Chen & Z. G. Zhang. -- R. E. Tulloss