Grey Spotted Amanita

Amanita excelsa var. spissa, generally called the grey spotted amanita in Britain, is a stout, sober-coloured European woodland amanita. Where its brighter relatives advertise themselves in red or orange, this one is a study in greys and browns: a grey-brown cap with dull grey mealy patches, a greyish ring, and a stem base marked with grey-brown belts.

It belongs to the group of amanitas with amyloid spores and a bulbous but non-sac-forming base, sitting close to Amanita rubescens and Amanita porphyria. Many authors treat A. spissa and A. excelsa as a single variable species, with the stouter, more heavily patched forms named var. spissa.

The features that make it identifiable are structural rather than colourful: a grooved or lined upper surface to the ring, a stem base that swells gradually into a turnip shape with a slightly rooting point rather than ending in a sharp rim, and flesh that stays white when cut.

Cap

6-15 cm across, convex then flattening, greyish brown, mouse-brown, or dull umber, sometimes with paler streaks. The surface bears flat, mealy to felty greyish patches of universal veil that are often irregular in shape and can be washed off by rain. The margin is smooth, not grooved.

Gills

Free or very narrowly attached, crowded, white, occasionally becoming faintly greyish or cream with age. Gill edges are minutely floccose under a lens.

Stipe

7-15 cm long, whitish to pale grey and typically decorated below the ring with grey-brown fibrillose bands or zigzag scales. The ring is large, membranous, pendulous, and distinctly grooved or lined on its upper surface. The base swells gradually into a turnip-shaped or club-shaped bulb, often narrowing to a short rooting point, and is encircled by belts of grey veil remnants rather than finished with a sharp collar.

Flesh and spore print

Flesh white and firm, unchanging when cut or bruised, which is a key separator from the reddening Amanita rubescens. Odour faintly of raw potato or radish. Spore print white; spores are ellipsoid and amyloid.

This is a common woodland fungus across Europe, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean and eastward through temperate Eurasia, with related forms in North America. It grows on soil in both deciduous and coniferous woodland, favouring beech, oak, birch, spruce, and pine, and tolerates a wide range of soil types from sandy heaths to richer loams.

Fruit bodies appear singly or scattered from early summer into late autumn, generally from June to November in northern Europe, with the main flush in late summer. It often shares ground with Amanita rubescens and Amanita muscaria in the same stands.

The species is ectomycorrhizal, forming sheathed root tips with a range of broadleaf and coniferous hosts. Its wide host tolerance explains its abundance across many European woodland types, and it is often among the most frequent large amanitas in mixed forest.

Its perennial mycelium ramifies through the litter and upper mineral soil, connecting host root systems to a much larger volume of soil than roots alone can reach. Fruit bodies emerge when soil moisture and temperature align, produce their white spores from the free gills, and decay within a week or two, returning their nutrients to the litter layer.

Amanita rubescens is the closest match in size and colour, but its flesh turns pink to wine-red where cut, bruised, or tunnelled by insect larvae, and its veil patches tend to be pinkish-grey rather than pure grey. Amanita pantherina has a darker brown cap with pure white, evenly scattered warts, a strongly grooved cap margin, a smooth ungrooved ring, and a bulb finished with a sharp collar and rolled rim.

Amanita porphyria has a purplish-grey cap, a grey ring, and an abrupt rounded bulb with a distinct rim. Amanita ceciliae has a much more fragile, deeply grooved cap and no ring at all. Where possible check three characters together: whether the flesh changes colour, whether the ring is grooved, and whether the bulb is rimmed.