Vittadini's lepidellaAmanita vittadinii

Is Amanita vittadinii edible? Sources disagree. Some Spanish and French authors call it edible, an Italian guide to mushroom toxicology advises against eating it, and some authors list it as poisonous. We don't recommend it. It's a rare mushroom, and above all it looks too much like the deadly white amanitas, where a mistake can cost a life. In English it's known as Vittadini's lepidella or the barefoot amanita, and some mycologists now place it in a separate genus, Saproamanita.

How to recognise it. The cap is 7–15 cm across, sometimes up to 18, white to cream and turning ochre with age. It's covered all over in warts and scales: sharp and pyramid-like on young caps, flatter on older ones. Ragged pieces of veil hang from the edge, which has no grooves. The gills are free, crowded, white then cream, and never turn pink or brown. The stem is 8–16 cm tall, firm and white, and from the base right up to the ring it carries bands of pointed, upturned scales that brown with age and handling. The ring is broad, double and white, smooth on top and fluffy underneath. The stem base roots into the soil, and there's no sack-like volva of the kind a death cap has: the veil leaves only scales. The flesh is white and firm and may yellow slightly at the stem base. The smell is faint and pleasant and fades in older specimens.

Where does it grow? In grass: on steppe slopes, meadows, in parks, gardens and on lawns, singly, in small groups or sometimes in fairy rings. Unlike most amanitas it doesn't form mycorrhiza with trees but feeds on plant remains in the soil, which is why it was moved, with its close relatives, into Saproamanita, although many mycologists still keep it in Amanita. The fruit bodies survive drought and carry on growing after rain. It's a warmth-loving European species, recorded from the British Isles to Italy and east to Ukraine, with most records from Spain, Italy, Ukraine and Hungary. It fruits in two flushes, in late spring to early summer and again in early to mid autumn, with odd finds from mid spring to late autumn.

Amanita vittadinii vs the deadly white amanitas. The white form of the death cap, the destroying angel (Amanita virosa) and the spring destroying angel (Amanita verna) have a smooth cap with no warts, a sack-like volva at the base, and grow with trees, in woods and parks. Amanita vittadinii has a cap covered in scales, no sack, and grows in open grass. But no single feature is a guarantee: the destroying angel's stem can be shaggy too, and the sack stays in the ground if the mushroom is cut with a knife. So don't pick white amanitas at all. Death cap poisoning only shows its first signs 6–24 hours after the meal, so if there's any chance a white amanita ended up in your basket, call 112 (999 in the UK) straight away without waiting for symptoms, and keep any leftovers or photos.

Other look-alikes. Field and horse mushrooms grow in the same meadows, but their gills turn pink and then chocolate brown. The white dapperling is also white, has a ring and grows on lawns, but its cap and stem are smooth, with no scales, and it has no sack. The frayed parasol has ochre scales on the cap, a smooth stem and a ring you can slide. Amanita strobiliformis and Amanita echinocephala are other big, white, warty amanitas, but they grow under broadleaf trees.

In Ukraine it's rare and protected regionally: it isn't in the national Red Data Book, but it is on the Poltava region red list and on the Sumy region list of regionally rare species. If you find one, take a photo and leave it where it grows.