Description
The death cap has a large and imposing epigeous (aboveground) fruiting body (basidiocarp), usually with a pileus (cap) from 5 to 15 cm (2–6 in) across, initially rounded and hemispherical, but flattening with age. The color of the cap can be pale-, yellowish-, or olive-green, often paler toward the margins and often paler after rain. The cap surface is sticky when wet and easily peeled, a troublesome feature, as that is allegedly a feature of edible fungi. The remains of the partial veil are seen as a skirtlike, floppy annulus usually about 1.0 to 1.5 cm (0.4–0.6 in) below the cap. The crowded white lamellae (gills) are free. The stipe is white with a scattering of grayish-olive scales and is 8 to 15 cm (3–6 in) long and 1 to 2 cm (3/8–3/4 in) thick, with a swollen, ragged, sac-like white volva (base). As the volva, which may be hidden by leaf litter, is a distinctive and diagnostic feature, it is important to remove some debris to check for it.
The smell has been described as initially faint and honey-sweet, but strengthening over time to become overpowering, sickly-sweet and objectionable. Young specimens first emerge from the ground resembling a white egg covered by a universal veil, which then breaks, leaving the volva as a remnant. The spore print is white, a common feature of Amanita. The transparent spores are globular to egg-shaped, measure 8–10 μm (0.3–0.4 mil) long, and stain blue with iodine. The gills, in contrast, stain pallid lilac or pink with concentrated sulfuric acid.
Read more about this topic: Amanita Phalloides
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“It [Egypt] has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any other place.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)