Plant Guide > Mushrooms > Genus Amanita > Amanita Caesarea

Amanita Caesarea - Orange Amanita

Amanita Caesarea

Orange Amanita

Cap or Pileus - Smooth, glabrous, and free from warts or scales. Red or orange, fading to yellow on the margin or all over the cap. Margin distinctly striate. When fully expanded, nearly flat. When moist, slightly sticky and viscid.

Stem - Yellow. When young, fibrous or cottony within, later hollow.

Wrapper or Volva - White and membranous, loosely sheathing the base of the stem.

Veil - Covers the gills of the young plant. Remains are seen on the stem only, where it hangs down like a white ruffle.

Gills or Lamellae - Rounded at the stem end and not attached to the stem. Yellow, an exception to the rule that the colour of the gills in mature plants resembles the colour of the spores.

Young Plant - When young, the cap and stein are contained in a wrapper not unlike a hen's egg in shape, size, and colour. As the cap and stem within develop, the wrapper ruptures in its elongates, and the cap is carried up, while the remains of the wrapper are left at the base of the stem, an open sac.

Spores - White, elliptical.

Flesh - White stained with yellow under the separable epidermis and next the line of attachment of the gills.

Taste - Mild and pleasant.

Habitat - Thin woods, preferably pine woods and sandy soil. Abundant in Southern Europe, common in the Southern States, and occasionally found in New York and Massachusetts.

Time - July, August, September.

The Amanita Caesarea is one of the handsomest species. The Greeks and Romans esteemed it as an article of food. The names, "Food of the gods," "Cibus Deorum," "Imperial mushroom," "Caesar's mushroom," and "Kaiserling," suggest the esteem in which it was held.