Small Yellow Smooth Bulb Amanitae     SubSection

This is a key to gilled mushrooms, that is, mushrooms having a definite cap with a fertile surface consisting of gills. The fruiting body usually also has a stem, although that may be lateral or absent (usually, then, the mushroom is growing from wood). You can use this key to identify mushrooms that you find.

Fruiting body containing fibers (usually in the stalk)

Fruiting body having a combination of some of the following characteristics:
Stalk growing out of a cup of cottony tissue called a volva (all white-spored mushrooms with a volva go here)
Cap with scattered patches or flakes of the same sort of tissue as the volva (see second picture), easily peeled off
Annulus (skirt-like ring on stalk)

All yellow-capped Amanitas can go here
All Amanitas with concentric, toothed rings around the base of stalk definitely go here
No volva; basal bulb sometimes small, often rimmed in one way or another
Universal veil generally leaves remains on cap as small scattered patches

Diagnosis

• Base of stalk slightly and smoothly bulbous
  
• Cap some shade of yellow; less than 5" across, and usually less than 3
  
• Annulus usually present, but it may be fragile and easily lost, or plastered to the stem and overlooked

Comments

Narrow down your identification:

Cap pale grey, developing yellow tints in age; up to 2 1/4" across
Annulus fragile, often disappearing in age
Universal veil fragments white; wooly around base of stalk; cottony and often translucent on cap

Cap bright orange at first, darker over the disk, fading in age; margin clearly striate, but to a very short extent
Universal veil material yellow to cream, forming yellow powder or flakes at the base of the stalk

Cap pale yellow
Annulus present (sometimes plastered to the stipe)

Cap up to 4" across; with pink or salmon tones. Universal veil yellow, powdery
Stem pale yellow
Annulus yellow, often disintegrating before you get to it

Lookalikes: Amanita flavoconia Universal veil material yellow. Spores amyloid. Amanita flavorubescens Cap deep brown to yellowish brown or yellow at first, fading in age Universal veil material yellow, not fading, forming small scattered patches on cap and flakes or powder on lower stem Flesh slowly staining red when bruised or in age

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