| European Panther | |
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| Species: | A. pantherina var. pantherina
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| Binomial name | |
| Amanita pantherina var. pantherina | |
Amanita pantherina var. pantherina | |
|---|---|
 | Gills on hymenium |
 | Cap is flat |
 | Hymenium is free |
 | Stipe has a ring and volva |
 | Spore print is white |
 | Ecology is mycorrhizal |
 | Edibility is poisonous or psychoactive |
Amanita pantherina var. pantherina, also known as the panther cap and false blusher due to its similarity to the true blusher (Amanita rubescens), is a species of fungus found in Europe and Western Asia.
Description
- Cap: 4 – 11 cm wide, hemispheric at first, then convex to plano-convex, deep brown to hazel-brown to pale ochraceous brown, densely distributed warts that are pure white to sordid cream, minutely verruculose, floccose, easily removable. Viscid when wet, with a short striate margin. The flesh is white, unchanging when injured.
- Gills: free, close to crowded, white becoming greyish, truncate.
- Spores: white in deposit, broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid to elongate, infrequently globose. 8 — 12 × 5.5 — 8 µm.
- Stipe: 5 – 14 cm long × .6 – 2 cm wide, subcyclindric, somewhat narrowing upward, white, becoming slightly tannish in age, stuffed then hollow, finely floccose becoming smooth above the ring, and with small appressed squamules or creamy floccose material below. The volva is white, becoming grey with age, forming one or sometimes two narrow hoop-like rings just above the bulbous base. The flesh is white, unchanging when injured.
- Odour: Unpleasant or like raw potatoes
- Microscopic features: Spores are 8-14 x 6-10 µm, smooth, elliptical and inamyloid.[1]
Other than the brownish cap with white warts, distinguishing features of Amanita pantherina include the collar-like roll of volval tissue at the top of the basal bulb, and the elliptical, inamyloid spores.
Habitat and distribution
The panther cap is an uncommon mushroom, found in both deciduous, especially beech and, less frequently, coniferous woodland and rarely meadows throughout Europe, western Asia in late summer and autumn.[2] It has also been recorded from South Africa, where it is thought to have been accidentally introduced with trees imported from Europe, and on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. [3]
It is an ectomycorrhizal fungus, living in root symbiosis with a tree, deriving photosynthesised nutrients from it and providing soil nutrients in return.
Biochemistry
Amanita pantherina contains the psychoactive compound muscimol,[4] but is used as an entheogen much less often than the related Amanita muscaria.
See also
References
- ^ Kuo, M. (2005, March). Amanita pantherina. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/amanita_pantherina.html
- ^ Jordan P & Wheeler S (2001). The Ultimate Mushroom Book. Hermes House.
- ^ Reid DA, Eicker A (1991). "South African fungi: the genus Amanita" (PDF). Mycological Research. 95: 80–95. doi:10.1016/S0953-7562(09)81364-6. Retrieved 2007-11-13.
- ^ Barceloux D. G. (2008). "41 (Isoxazole-containing mushrooms and pantherina syndrome)". Medical toxicology of natural substances: foods, fungi, medicinal herbs, plants, and venomous animals (PDF). Canada: John Wiley and Sons Inc. p. 298. ISBN 978-0-471-72761-3.
External links
- MushroomHobby -- Amanita pantherina in California and beyond...
- http://home.wanadoo.nl/abiemans/e_ama_pant.html
- http://www.amanitaceae.org/?Amanita+pantherina+var.+pantherina
Poisonous Amanita mushrooms | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Subgenus Amanita |
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| Subgenus Amanitina |
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