Amanita betulae Birch Grisette

A fairly distinctive grisette with a hazel-brown cap which can be quite dark or a paler cafe-au-lait or beige colour, but not the bright fulvous brown of Tawny Grisette (Amanita fulva). The stem has an elegant, brown, zig-zag pattern which may rub off on older specimens and the volva is large, appressed to the tem at the very base and then flared out into a sac above. The mature gills often have a brown edge (see photo) but this can be quite pale and is not always very obvious in young specimens. The basidiospores are spherical, approximately 10 microns in diameter and the gill edge has numerous globose sterile cheilocystidia which have dark contents (see photos). It grows specifically with birch and may be widespread in Britain but has been confused with other species. There has only been one collection in West Glamorgan from the Gnoll Estate Country Park where a small population was found growing at the bases of Silver Birch (Betula pendula) trees, but it is probably under recorded in south Wales.