False Blusher

Description:

Cap: 4 – 11 cm wide, Hemispheric at first, then convex to plano-convex, deep brown to hazel-brown to pale ochraceous brown, densely distributed warts that are pure white to sordid cream, minutely verruculose, floccose, easily removable. Viscid when wet, with a short striate margin, The flesh is white, unchanging when injured. Gills: free, close to crowded, white becoming grayish, truncate. Spores: white in deposit, broadly ellipsoid to ellipsoid to elongate, infrequently globose. 8 — 12 × 5.5 — 8 µm. Stipe: 5 – 14 cm long × .6 – 2 cm wide, subcyclindric, somewhat narrowing upward, white, becoming slightly tannish in age, stuffed then hollow, finely floccose becoming smooth above the ring, and with small appressed squamules or creamy floccose material below. The volva is white, becoming gray with age, forming one or sometimes two narrow hoop-like rings just above the bulbous base. The flesh is white, unchanging when injured. Odor: Unpleasant or like raw potatoes Microscopic features: Spores are 8-14 x 6-10 µ, smooth, elliptical and inamyloid.[1] Other than the brownish cap with white warts, distinguishing features of Amanita pantherina include the collar-like roll of volval tissue at the top of the basal bulb, and the elliptical, inamyloid spores.

Notes:

The European Panther contains ibotenic acid and muscimol,[4] it is used as an entheogen much less often than the related Amanita muscaria because of the extremely high levels of these compounds found in the mushroom. It also contains some alkaloids,[5] though these are in non-deadly concentrations.[6] They are however sometimes dried or cooked at a low temperature and ingested.[