Sept. 1905] 
The Amanitas of Sweden 
21a 
AMANITA MUSCARIA. 
A. muscaria, it may be said, was found occurring in two dis¬ 
tinct forms. The common and typical form is much more bril¬ 
liant than the plant commonly found in America. It is large and 
robust, with the pileus as much as ten inches in diameter, and is at 
first a brilliant red, not orange, with which the white warts of the 
pileus contrast finely. In this form it seemed to me the most 
striking and beautiful of the fungi observed. In Maine I have 
collected specimens with colors nearly as bright and stature fully 
as large, but for the most part our Americn plant seems to tend 
more to orange or yellow than to red, and is much less striking in 
appearance. The other Swedish form is very modest in its colora¬ 
tion, being umber or even gray, but differs in no other way from 
the type. The spores were as in our American plant. 
AMANITA RUBESCENS. 
A. rubescens Pers. was our familiar friend in color, stature, 
habit, and spores, and was as abundant as it is on Long Island, 
while Amanitopsis vaginata Bull, was identical with our plant and 
presented the same variations in color and stature. 
AMANITA STRANGULATA AND VAGINATA. 
Of the remaining species several were of great interest, and 
were observed with great care through the summer. The first of 
these to appear was A. strangulata Fr. I had felt very anxious to 
find this species, and as it happened, was well located to observe 
it, as one island in the Park at Drottningholm where we were lo¬ 
cated seemed to be a peculiarly favorable station, where it could 
be seen in large numbers throughout the summer. The status 
of this species has been doubtful to American students for several 
reasons. Fries himself, evidently did not have a clear conception 
of it when he wrote the first edition of his Epicrisis, for he placed 
it with A. solitaria, described it as having a thin pileus, a circum- 
scissile free volva, and an entire distant annulus. He stated also 
that it is plainly analogous to A. verna, and that he had observed 
only one plant, growing on an ant hill. Later he seems to describe 
an entirely different plant, placing it in Amanitopsis and com¬ 
paring it with A. vaginata, from which he makes it differ in its 
larger size, its warty pileus, and in the character of its volva and 
annulus. He gives also a very good figure in the main. 
As we observed the plant it corresponds well to Fries’ later 
description, and to his figure. At Drottingholm it is a very 
robust plant, easily exceeding all the other species in size. One 
specimen was observed which had the pileus 12 in. in diameter, 
the stipe nearly fourteen inches high and two inches thick. From 
these dimensions it varied all the way to the size of our forms of 
A. vaginata. In the park it was very conspicuous, the huge pilei. 
