Species details
Grisette
Amanita vaginata
Conditional / expert preparation
Photo: Michel Langeveld · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photo source · License
Description
A grey to grey-brown grisette with a deeply striate cap margin, no ring, and a white volva.
Identification features
The stem is slender and ringless; the base sits in a sack-like volva and cap patches are usually absent.
Identification checklist
Check the entire fruitbody for identification. A grey to grey-brown grisette with a deeply striate cap margin, no ring, and a white volva. The stem is slender and ringless; the base sits in a sack-like volva and cap patches are usually absent. Typical habitat: Deciduous and conifer woodland, parks, and edges on varied soils.
Detailed features
- Cap
- 3–10 cm, grey, initially conical-bell-shaped, later expanded; margin strongly radially striate from a young stage.
- Hymenophore
- Gills white, broad, very crowded, and free from the stem.
- Stem
- 6–10 × 0.5–1.5 cm, long, slender and whitish-grey; no ring, with a sac-like volva around the base.
- Flesh
- White and very brittle.
- Smell
- Indistinct.
- Spore print
- White.
Size
- Cap diameter
- 3–10 cm
- Stem height
- 6–10 cm
- Stem diameter
- 0,5–1,5 cm
Habitat
Deciduous and conifer woodland, parks, and edges on varied soils.
Fruiting period
June, July, August, September, October
Ecology
- Trophic mode
- Mycorrhizal
- Substrate
- Forest soil
- Notes
- Mycorrhizal with various deciduous and coniferous trees; occurs in woods and at woodland edges.
How to separate similar species
Compare especially with these similar species: Amanita fulva, Amanita ceciliae, Amanita phalloides. Check the combination of cap shape and colour, spore-bearing surface, stem, flesh changes and habitat. A single feature or photograph is not enough; if the key characters do not match the description, do not treat the identification as confirmed.
Similar species
- Death cap (Amanita phalloides) DANGEROUS
The deadly death cap has a ring and usually a less strongly striate margin; it also has a volva, so the whole stem base must be examined.
- Tawny grisette (Amanita fulva)
The tawny grisette is also ringless with a volva, but has an orange- to reddish-brown cap.