BRIEF DESCRIPTION: The cap of Amanita ravenelii is 90 - 199 mm wide, white at first and dingy cream after some in situ drying, globose at first, finally planoconvex.  The cap context is white, sometimes slowly pale sordid tannish when cut or bruised, 11 - 19.5 mm thick above the stipe, thinning evenly to the margin.  The cap margin is nonstriate, slightly incurved at first, appendiculate with relatively large submembranous material in fragments up to 20 mm long or as 2 - 3 mm rim around pileus margin; the volva appears on the cap as warts, subpyramidal to truncate-pyramidal over disc, near mid-radius as concentric rings of floccose scales, becoming progressively finer toward margin, with sides of warts radially fibrillose to matted-fibrillose (photos on right, above).  The adnate warts are concolorous at first and become tan, then pale red-brown, then red-brown, and finally brown.

The gills of this species are free to narrowly adnate without a decurrent line on the stipe, crowded, pale yellowish white to yellowish cream in mass, pale yellowish white to cream in side view, 10.5 - 18 mm broad, infrequently forking in some specimens, with edge finely pulverulent and white (browning on edge with age); the short gills are rounded truncate to subtruncate to subattenuate to attenuate, of diverse lengths, and plentiful.

The stipe is 82 - 125 × 15 - 27 mm, whitish, becoming yellowish with age or sometimes intensely rusty-red-brown, becoming faint pinkish in longitudinal crevices, cylindric or narrowing downward, flaring at apex, sometimes slightly flattened, floccose-flocculose in about upper third of stipe, longitudinally striate below, sometimes fibrillose below, sometimes bearing submembranous to subfelted bands of greatly varying widths in lower two-thirds (down to the top of the bulb).  The stipe's bulb is deeply radicating, often showing longitudinal splitting, often of irregular form, sometimes onion-shaped, sometimes doglegged, 66 - 204 × 32 - 63 mm, often with rusty stains; context solid, white, becoming rusty brown very slowly on cut surfaces, with larva tunnels concolorous to pale yellowish to rusty brown.  The annulus is submembranous to subfelted to compressed-flocculose at first, with large rectangular warts on the underside at the edge; it eventually falls away in large subfelted chunks.  The volva is disposed as obscure partial rings (widely separated) on the upper half of the stipe's bulb, floccose but thin at first, concolorous, with bulb surface sometimes splitting into recurved scales tipped with universal veil material.

The spores measure (7.0-) 8.0 - 11.9 (-14.0) × (4.6-) 5.2 - 7.7 (-8.5) µm and are ellipsoid to elongate (rarely broadly ellipsoid or cylindric) and amyloid.  Clamps are present on bases of basidia.

Odor is lacking at first, then of “chlorine” or "old ham" (decaying protein) type (but not too unpleasant).  Taste has not been recorded.

This species occurs in deciduous or mixed deciduous-conifer forest in association with trees including oak and/or pine, and sometimes also including beech and/or hickory.  The species' range includes the region between New Jersey, North Carolina, and Arkansas, but is probably more extensive.

Bas' stirps Ravenelii includes the present species as well as these others: A. crassa Bas (Argentina), A. pyramidifera D. A. Reid (Australia), and A. strobilacea (Cooke) Sacc. (Australia). Other taxa from Australia have been claimed to belong with this group. -- R. E. Tulloss