White-spored Series 



Fly Amanita (Poisonous) ' 



Amanita muscaria (SEE PLATE FACING PAGE 50) 



Cap or Pileus Orange red to pale yellow or almost white. The 

 young plants are brighter, and fade from the margin inward 

 as the plant matures. Floccose scales, the wrapper remains, 

 are scattered on the cap. The margin is often striate. 3-6 

 inches broad. 



Stem or Stipe White or slightly tinged with yellow. Pithy or 

 hollow. Base not broad and abrupt, but ovate, covered 

 with the scaly margins of the wrapper. 4-6 inches long. 



Veil and Ring or Annulus The veil covers the gills of the young 

 plant, and later is seen as a collar-like ring on the stem. 



Gills or Lamellae White or slightly tinged with yellow. Various 

 in length ; short ones terminating in length with almost 

 vertical abruptness. 



Spores White, broadly elliptical. 



Flesh White, tinged with yellow under the epidermis. 



Habitat Along roadsides, on borders of fields, in groves of conif- 

 erous trees. It prefers poor soil, gravelly or scanty. It 

 grows singly, not in groups. 



Time June until freezing weather. 



Young Plant This is at first egg-like, then dumb-bell shaped. 

 As the parts within expand, the wrapper breaks up into 

 scales, so that the convex, unexpanded cap is densely covered 

 with more or less concentric fragments of the wrapper, and 

 the bulbous stem is covered with rings of f ringy scales. As 

 the stem expands, these scales are left on the bulbous base, 

 while the fragments on the cap are more widely separated 

 by the growth of the cap. 



The fly amanita is a very conspicuous and handsome species. 

 There are conflicting statements concerning the properties of 

 this fungus; some claim that it is edible, and yet it is known 

 to have caused much sickness and many deaths. It caused 

 the death of the Czar Alexis of Russia, and of the Count de 

 Vecchi in Washington. It is said that it is cooked and eaten 

 by the Russians, and still it is on record that several French 

 soldiers ate of it in Russia and became very ill. 



The Siberians steep dried specimens of the fly amanita in 

 whortleberry juice, and thus make a drink which produces an 

 intoxication similar to that produced by the "haschisch" and 

 "majoon" of the East. 



Mtis-ca'-rf-& 

 3 49 



