Deadly Delicious Death Cap Mushroom Botanical Illustrations and Images

Summary: Death cap mushroom botanical illustrations depict distribution ranges and physical appearances of delicious-smelling, delicious-tasting deadly fungi.

death cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides), illustrated by A. Bessin; P. Dumée, Nouvel Atlas de Poche des Champignons (1912), opposite page 3: Not in copyright, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Death cap mushroom illustrations and images address the artistic aspects of distribution ranges, life cycles and physical appearances of a non-native, poisonous fungus introduced into the coastal United States in the 1890s.

Death cap mushrooms bear the scientific name Amanita phalloides ("fungus phallus-like"), with the genus name from the Greek word αμανίται (amānītai) for "[a kind of] fungus." The species name (from the Greek φαλλός [phallós] -ειδής [-eidés, "-like"]) perhaps compares death cap mushroom sheath-like configurations to the superficially similar stinkhhorn mushroom genus Phallus. The Amanitaceae family member of the Agaricales (from the Greek ἀγαρικόν [agarikón, "tree-fungus"]) gilled mushroom order demonstrates a distinct display of white caps, cups and spores.

Native homelands in Europe, North Africa and western Asia and naturalized homelands in North America experience the delicious-smelling, delicious-tasting, deadly white mushrooms September through November.

Death cap mushrooms furnish fatal food to predators of dried, fresh, frozen and heated fungi and root protection for certain coniferous, deciduous and evergreen woody plants.

Death cap mushrooms, given the common names deadly and stinking amanita and grouped scientifically by Sébastien Vaillant (May 26, 1669-May 20, 1722), grow from wind-dispersed spores. The 0.00032- to 0.00039-inch- (8- to 10-micron-) long and thick white to transparent spores have egg-like, globe-like, rounded shapes and white spore prints against white paper. The life cycles of death cap mushrooms, investigated scientifically by Elias Magnus Fries (Aug. 15, 1794-Feb. 8, 1878), involve germination into above-ground fruiting, below-ground vegetative parts.

Death cap botanical illustrations jumble below-ground mycelia (from the Greek μύκης [múkēs, "mushroom"]) ectomycorrhizally (from the Greek ἐκτός [ektós, "outside"] μύκης [múkēs, "fungus"] ῥίζα [rhíza, "root"]).

The myceliar, thread-like, white hyphae (from the Greek ὑφή [huphé, "web"]) know the mutual benefits of keeping tree roots sheathed in exchange for nutrient-rich, sugar-filled excretions.

Exudates (waste products) of beech, birch, chestnut, eucalyptus, filbert, hemlock, hornbeam, horse-chestnut, oak, pine and spruce roots let death cap mushroom parts live above and below-ground. The brown-olive, green-yellow, cap-like, pale-margined pileus (from the Greek πῖλος [pîlos, "felt"]) manages 1.97- to 5.91-inch (5- to 15-centimeter) diameters and earlier hemispheric, later flattened shapes. A floppy 0.39- to 0.59-inch (1- to 1.5-centimeter) ring nudges the white-gilled undersides of death caps, noted scientifically by Johann Link (Feb. 2, 1767-Jan. 1, 1851).

Death cap mushroom botanical illustrations and images observe the fragile white ring just below the cap's lamellae (gills, from the Latin lāmellae, "small, thin metal piece").

Long-stemmed, 3.15- to 5.91-inch- (8- to 15-centimeter) long, 0.39- to 0.79-inch- (1- to 2-centimeter-) thick stipes (from the Greek στέφω [stéphō, "encircle"] possess scattered gray-olive scales.

The ragged, sac-like, swollen base of the white stipe queues up a maximum 1.58-inch (4-centimeter) diameter within a 1.18- to 1.97-inch (3- to 5-centimeter) diameter cup. Edible coccora (Amanita calyptroderma), puffball and straw (Volvariella volacea) mushrooms resemble all-white younger death caps more than brown-green-capped older counterparts with age-yellowed, drought-clouded or moisture-paled stems. Ingestion of 1.06 ounces (30 grams) of the amatoxins, antamides, phallolysins and phallotoxins that death caps shelter stops human life-sustaining activities within 6 to 16 days.

Death cap mushroom illustrations and images tackle temperate grassland-loving fungi with brown-green-yellow caps, pale sheaths for tree roots and terminal fresh and processed treats for mushroom-eaters.

death cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides), illustrated by Giacomo Bresadola, I Funghi Mangerecci e Velenosi (1906), Tav. III: Not in copyright, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

death cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides), illustrated by A. Bessin; P. Dumée, Nouvel Atlas de Poche des Champignons (1912), opposite page 3: Not in copyright, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3894919; Biodiversity Heritage Library (BioDivLibrary), Public Domain, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/61021753@N02/6459622393/

death cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides), illustrated by Giacomo Bresadola, I Funghi Mangerecci e Velenosi (1906), Tav. III: Not in copyright, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3900817; Biodiversity Heritage Library (BioDivLibrary), Public Domain, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/61021753@N02/8574864620/

For further information:

Bresadola, Sac. G. (Giacomo). 1906.”Amanita phalloides Fr. -- Tav. III.” I Funghi Mangerecci e Velenosi dell’Europa Media, Con Speciale Riguardo a Quelli Che Crescono nel Trentino: 35. II edizione riveduta ed aumentata. Trento, Italy: Giovanni Zippel.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3900703

Dumée, Paul. 1912. "Amanite phalloïde. -- Amanita phalloides." Nouvel Atlas de Poche des Champignons Comestibles et Vénéneux les Plus Repandus: 3. Peintures par A. Bessin. Troisième Édition. Bibliothèque de Poche du Naturaliste. Paris, France: Léon Lhomme.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3894918

Fries, Elias Magnus. 1821. "2. A. Phalloides." Systema Mycologicum. Greifswald, Gryphiswaldiae: Sumtibus Ernesti Mauritii, volumen I: 13-14. Gryphiswaldiae [Greifswald, Germany]: Ernesti Mauritii [Ernst Mauritius], MDCCCXXI.
Available via Biblioteca Digital @ http://bibdigital.rjb.csic.es/spa/Libro.php?Libro=957&Pagina=71

Link, H.F. (Heinrich Friedrich). 1833. "1. Amanita phalloides." Handbuck zur Erkennung der Nutzbarsten und am Häufigsten Vorkommenden Gewächse. Dritter Theil: 272. Berlin, Germany: In der Haude und Spenerschen Buchhandlung (S.J. Joseephy).
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53338886

Vaillant, Sébastien. 1727. "3. Fungus phalloides, annulatus, sordide virescens, et patulus." Botanicon Parisiense ou Dénombrement par Ordre Alphabétique des Plantes, Qui Se Trouvent aux Environs de Paris Compris dans la Carte de la Prevoté & de l'Élection de la Dite Ville par le Sieur Danet Gendre année MDXXXXII: 74. Leide and Amsterdam: Jean & Herman Verbeek and Balthazar Lakeman, MDCCXXVII.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/628546
Available via Gallica @ https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k981001/f129