Also because i’m feeling REAL sassy tonight, lets break down Amanita sections. What’s a section? Its the level between Genus and Species that makes it a little easier to discuss similar features between groups in a genus even if you can’t get it specifically down to species. This is great for getting a little more granular than genus when you’re not sure on the species.
Caveat: I’m actually pretty bad at amanitas but someone was kind enough to send me a copy of Amanitas of North America by Bunyard & Justice so I’m going to just distill their explanation of the sections in extremely unscientific terms
There are a few structures that are important to understanding amanita - a lot of these structures are in other species, especially closely related species, but I’m going to point them out here pendantically anyway because you should know them.
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Gills/Lamellae - these are the fertile surface of amanita (and many agaric mushrooms.) They hang down, they look like ribs, and across the board they are free in amanita mushrooms - IE they are not attached to the stem and hang free of it. Incidentally, they always have a white spore print but may have other colors of gills
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partial veil - the gill edges start fused to this structure and separate as the cap opens. If you find a young enough specimen, this still may be fused to the gills. In some sections, the partial veil remains fused to the stem leaving no ring/annulus
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Universal veil/Volva - This is the egglike sac that all amanita grow out of. Again, not unique to this genus (see also: Volvopluteus/volariella and stinkhorn mushrooms) This ends up breaking up and looking different in a mature mushroom and is very important to IDing Amanita, which is a huge reason why you need to excavate the entire mushroom for good ID
So, now on to the sections
- Sect. Phalloideae - this section contains some of the deadliest mushrooms on the planet. Here lives amatoxins, phallotoxins, lots of toxins. A. virosa, A. bisporigera, A. Phalloides, and many more famous and deadly mushrooms live here. Don’t eat these, your liver will melt and you will die a painful death
At maturity, these will retain a saccate volva (looks like a sac at the bottom of the mushroom), may have a single patch of remnant universal (velar) material left on the top - but not little dots. Have a skirt like annulus/partial veil (but don’t rely on it for ID because it may wear off.) Usually pretty easy to ID to section, often white or yellowish or greenish and very pretty.
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Sect. Validae - volva remains marginate (IE, it has an edge,) but doesn’t fully have a sack. Will have small veil remnants on cap. Has an annulus on the stem.
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Sect. Lepidella - Retains a partial veil/annulas. Volva breaks apart leaving dotted remnants on both cap and stem, without a saccate volva
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Sect. Amidella - this is a small section that I’m kind of the worst at. Usually doesn’t have an annulus (there’s a couple species that do,) and retains a thick, saccate remnant volva that is quite large.
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Sect Amanita - This is where Amanita muscaria, the fly agaric, lives. Its actually the type species of the section. often have brightly colored caps dotted with universal veil remnants and tattered veil remnants on a bulbous base. If its looks like the Mario mushroom, it probably lives here.
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Sect. Caesaereae - Amanita ceasaerea is the type species for this section and is a prized edible (don’t eat these unless you’re good at amanita IDs though, PLEASE.) Sometimes have more brightly colored gills and stipe than most other amanita species, may develop a chevron pattern on the stipe, has a striate margin (there’s distinct, longitudinal lines on the cap) a saccate volva, and a partial veil.
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Sect. Vaginatae - this is Caesaereae’s sister section. Retains most of the same characteristics, although they are generally not quite as bright and lack a partial veil remnant. So, they won’t have a skirt.
EDIT: I forgot there’s some more sections of amanita that I forgot about. Also Lepidella has apparently been mainly absorbed into other sections - I’ll need to update this a bit later XD