OKay i just got back from picking mushrooms and there were very many red capped mushrooms that looked exactly like amanita muscaria. The only difference was, there werent many with the ring just below the cap and none of them had white warts, but they looked like they could of had warts in previous time. Any ideas on if they are Fly Agaric?
I would suggest Amanita jacksonii (american's caesar Amanita) for consideration here. I only suggest this as something you can look up in your books and at online pictures to compare to what you are seeing. You'll have to rely on a board range of 'possibilities' and outright guesses unless you can get a picture up. I know that A. jacksonii are popping up in Pennsylvania & upstate NY about now.
I suppose I'm not adding much to the debate, however in my experience at least, A. jacksonii, A. flavoconia and the other "Caesar-oid" occur so rarely that the large flush described here seems somewhat unlikely, although certainly not impossible. OTOH, if even one of them had a partial veil, no matter where it was located along the stipe, then it definitely wasn't a Russula species you were looking at...that is unless you came across a mixed grouping, which again is possible but not probable given the significant amount of attention you did put into trying to ID them. I would think this would have alerted you to some other significant differences between Amanita and Russula.
I should have elaborated. I would regularly encounter larger groups of American's Caesar Amanita (insert whatever latin name you want to describe it) in the same region as the poster at the same time he found his mushroom. My fruitings were always near stream beds and I could easily get 10 in the same spot (within a stone's throw), and then go off to find the next spot. Of course we are really poking at a ghost in the dark with no pictures and no more posts from from the poster.
Very good then. Given that information, then I surely haven't added much to the debate at all.<g> I have learned however that I probably shouldn't make estimates of growth habits based on my own experiences up here in the PNW. Although we do have a large number of species in general, given the relative rarity of native deciduous tree species, I suppose it's only common sense to presuppose a relative rarity of their mycorrhizae as well.
I haven't done much mycology lately but I thought that most quality field guides had helpful keys (a sort of flow chart) to determine a particular fungal species. Among other things I remember taking spore prints to help with identification. It has been years since my field guides were borrowed by a friend. Proper identification of edible species is too important to fool around with - A. muscaria is not a recommended edible species and I think some of it's relatives are deadly. Shaun
