Amanita
Fungal Boogie is a new CD by Zoe Wood and Larry Evans features 13 songs about fungi, edible and otherwise, in a range of musical styles that includes blues, calypso, polka, and rockabilly. Click here (395 kb) to hear a sample of the song "Fly Agaric." To hear clips from the rest of the CD, click here.
To see pictures of more members of this family identified, click here.
Amantia pachycolea
This fine Amanita vaginata group mushroom resembles A. pachycolea to me but I did not express the ultimate confidence in my identification by eating it. Notice the "vaginate" margin of the cap, the lack of warts, and the volva without an annulus on the stipe. Under aspen near Crested Butte, CO.
Limacella illinita
A sort of slime-covered Amanita, these rare mushrooms turn up only during very wet years, from western Colorado to western Montana. Nobody seems to have tried to eat them. You'd have to be pretty hungry to get around the slime. They have been found in forested settings.
Amanita phalloides
Since this page was first posted, new and improved information has been received. Rodham Tuloss clarified the identity of what I had tentatively identified as A. phalloides. It is A. spreta, as indicated by the cleft volva visible in the photos. Still, it is the first such mushroom I've encountered in 20 years of collecting so I must assume it is not too common in Montana. There are many reports from California of an expanding range for A. phalloides imported from Europe to California in the last century, but I'm yet to encounter it in Montana.
Amantia aprica
Also, thanks to work by Jan Lindgren and Rodham Tuloss, the photo of the mushroom previously known as A. gemmata W. has been officially described as Amanita aprica. It differs from previously described species of Amanita in morphological and microscopic aspects. Amanita gemmata is still a species, and we still see it, more often on the east side by Helena, where it likes the Ponderosas. A. aprica is more of a montane or old growth species. Note the different way the veil covers the cap in the two pictures, the thickness of the stem, base, etc.
Amanita vaginata from the Russian Far east.
Amantia muscaria magadan from the Russian Far east.
