Summary:
Features include 1) a dull white to gray or grayish brown, viscid cap, 2) free, crowded, broad, white gills, 3) a whitish smooth stem, 4) a white to pale grayish, sac-like volva, 5) growth in cultivated soil, and 6) a pinkish spore deposit. |Volvariella speciosa var. gloiocephala was considered by some as a separate species from var. speciosa, differing in having darker colors (brown or gray rather than whitish), and striations on the cap (Arora). Boekhout & Enderle (1986 as referred to in Breitenbach(4)) determined that these color types are conspecific and can arise from a single mycelium. (Those that grow in summer are white and those in fall are gray to gray brown). For reasons of priority the combined species is given the name Volvariella gloiocephala. |Justo(2) moved this species and its allies to a new genus Volvopluteus based on molecular research, and this is the current name in the online Species Fungorum, accessed February 9, 2019, although MycoBank gave the current name on that day as Volvariella gloiocephala. |DNA evidence appears to indicate that Pacific Northwest material matches European material, (D. Miller, pers. comm.).

Gills:
free, crowded, broad; "white becoming flesh-colored and finally sordid reddish", (Arora); free, close to crowded, broad, ventricose; white, becoming deep flesh color; edges uneven to eroded, (Shaffer)

Stem:
5-20cm x 1-2.5cm, equal or wider at base; whitish; dry, more or less smooth, (Arora), 9-20cm x 0.8-2cm, equal or widening to base, at times bulbous up to 3cm, round in cross-section, solid; white to cream; bald or villose and glabrescent [becoming bald], with the base villose to tomentose, (Shaffer), VOLVA universal veil membranous, forming a white to pale grayish sac-like volva at base of stem, volva often buried in soil, (Arora), "rather shallow, with the margin free and nearly even, lacerate, or lobed, white to light gray", (Shaffer)

Veil:
universal veil forming volva, [presumably no ring]

Odor:
unpleasant (Shaffer)

Taste:
unpleasant (Shaffer)

Microscopic spores:
spores 11.5-21 x 7-12 microns, elliptic, smooth, [presumably thickened wall, presumably inamyloid, gill tissue presumably convergent], (Arora), spores 11.7-20.9 x 7.2-12.4 microns, oval to ovoid [sic], occasionally obovoid; basidia 4-spored, rarely 2-spored or 3-spored, 30-66 x 11-18 microns, clavate; pleurocystidia common, 30-118 x 10-69 microns, subcylindric to fusoid and then with or without a knob at apex, "fusoid-ventricose (and then at times with the neck enlarged at the apex, constricted at the base, rarely branched, slender and curved, or short and passing abruptly into the body of the cystidium), lanceoloid to oblanceoloid and then at times bearing a nipple or knob at the apex", clavate and then often with a knob or slender projection up to 25 microns long arising from the apex, ovoid, or obovoid, cheilocystidia abundant, 23-108 x 8-42 microns, fusoid, with or without a projection up to 50 microns long and 8 microns wide "which may be variously swollen and contorted along its length and rarely branched", "fusoid-ventricose and then at times with the neck enlarged at the apex or slender and passing abruptly into the body of the cystidium, obtusely lanceoloid with or without a knob or nipple at the apex", clavate and then at times with a slender projection up to 25 microns long arising from the apex, or ovoid; cap cuticle up to 260 microns thick, of gelatinized hyphae; clamp connections absent, (Shaffer)

Spore deposit:
deep flesh-color to pinkish-brown (Arora)

Notes:
Volvariella speciosa var. speciosa collections were examined from BC, WA, OR, ON, MB, YT, AL, CA, CO, DC, FL, IL, IN, KS, MI, MT, NY, SC, SD, and WI, (Shaffer). V. speciosa var. gloiocephala collections were examined from CA, IA, KS, and NY, (Shaffer). There are collections of Volvopluteus gloiocephalus (under that name or V. speciosa) at the University of Washington from WA, ID, AK, CA, and VA. Breitenbach(4) give the range of Volvariella gloiocephala as North America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa.

EDIBILITY

yes, take a spore deposit because some Amanitas have pinkish gills in old age, (Arora)

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Volvariella gloiocephala (DC.) Wasser