BRIEF DESCRIPTION: The macroscopic description of this mushroom is largely reliant on the original description by Jenkins (1977). Additional observations from RET are included.

The cap of Amanita muscaria var. persicina is 40 - 130 mm wide, subviscid, glabrous, hemispherical to truncate-convex when young, becoming plano-convex to slightly plano-depressed, pastel red to light orange, slightly appendiculate, with a faintly to moderately striate margin. Volval remnants are present as thin, pale yellow to yellowish tan to tan, floccose-fibrillose patches, often in near concentric rings.

The gills of this taxon are truncately free, very crowded, moderately broad, creamy with a pale pinkish tint, and with a very floccose edge; the short gills are numerous and abruptly truncate.

The stem is 40 - 105 x 8 - 20 mm, cylindric or slightly expanded at top, pale yellow at top with the rest white to tannish white, fibrillose at the top.   The stem's bulb is globose to subovoid and 20 - 45 x 15 - 35 mm.  The ring of this species is white above  and yellowish below; it is fragile and positioned at about midstipe, with a thick margin.  Often it is not seen in fresh material.  Occasionally, a few fine ringlets of yellowish tan to tan, floccose volval material are seen on the lower stem.

The spores measure (8.0-) 9.4 - 12.7 (-18.0) x (5.5-) 6.5 - 8.5 (-11.1) µm and are ellipsoid to elongate (infrequently broadly ellipsoid, rarely cylindric) and are inamyloid. Clamps are common at bases of basidia.

Typical muscarioid rings of volval material on the lower stipe and upper bulb of this taxon are very weakly structured.  Often, there are no rings notable on fresh material.

The species is known from the Gulf Coast states of the US north to the sandy coastal plains of eastern Long Island, New York, and the Canadian Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis)-northern hardwood forests of northwestern New Jersey.  The most northern known collections have been made since 1998.

The species is associated predominantly with oak (Quercus) and pine (Pinus). For more about mycorrhizal association with the latter, the reader may wish to consult the following: Miller, O. K., Jr., D. T. Jenkins and P. Dery. 1986. Mycorrhizal synthesis of Amanita muscaria var. persicina with hard pines. Mycotaxon 26: 165-172.

The reader should compare this mushroom with A. muscaria subsp. flavivolvata Singer and A. muscaria var. guessowii Veselý.  Of the American infraspecific taxa of A. muscaria (as currently known), var. persicina has the most fragile ring and the most fragile volva.  The ranges of the three taxa are known to overlap. -- R. E. Tulloss