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[ Keys & Checklist/Picturebooks ] "Laura's Caesar"
Technical description (t.b.d.) BRIEF DESCRIPTION: The following description is based on the original description by Guzmán and Ramírez-Guillén (2001). The cap of A. laurae is (50-) 70 - 150 (-200) mm wide, dark red when young, orange-red to orange-yellow to yellow at maturity [Note: illustrations show the red color concentrated in the center of the cap and the margin strongly yellow], ovate at first then broadly bell-shaped, convex to plano-convex at maturity, without an umbo, smooth, viscid when moist, with a short to moderately striate margin. The volva is present as membranous, white patches. The flesh is white, reddish orange below the cap skin, and compact. The gills touch the stem and are yellow with an edge of the same color. The stem is (80-) 120 - 200 (-240) × (15-) 20 - 30 (-35) mm, cylindric or slightly narrowing upward, yellow to yellow-orange to orange-red, and hollow to stuffed with white cottony fibrils. The ring is membranous, skirt-like, up to 1 mm thick, yellow to orange, striate above, smooth or subfloccose below the ring. The saccate volva is membranous, thick, irregularly divided into two or more lobes, white on the outer surface, whitish to orange brown on the inner surface. The flesh is white and compact. The odor and taste are pleasant and somewhat sweet. The spores measure (8-) 9 - 11 (-14) × (6-) 7 - 7.5 (-10) µm and are subglobose to ellipsoid and inamyloid. Clamps are present at bases of basidia. This species was originally described from and known only from Mexico, especially in the state of Jaliasco, in association with pine-oak (Pinus-Quercus) and pine (Pinus) forests. The authors believe it may occur in Guatemala. The authors choose to compare this species of stirps Caesarea primarily to species not in that stirps. The original description of this species is difficult to interpret for numerous reasons among which are, for example, failure to identify methodology for examination of spores and microscopic anatomy, failure to make correct counts of the layers of cells in the subhymenium, failure to make drawings from well-hydrated sections, misuse of common terminology, failure to indicate the full range of variation for dimensions and shapes of microscopic features, failure to segregate the stipe surface from remnants of the internal limb that decorate it, etc. -- R. E. Tulloss and L. Possiel
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