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Key Features
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- Cap white to slightly yellowish (but often with brown or cinnamon stains).
- Odor strongly spicy-fragrant, like cinnamon or Red Hots (best detected by sniffing the gills).
- Gills white when fresh (but often with cinnamon stains in age).
- Gills typically notched (dipping in) where they join the stalk, not running down it.
- Veil present, covering the gills at first, then forming a prominent ring on stalk.
- Base of stalk without a bulb or volva.
- Growing on ground.
Other Features: Medium-sized to large; flesh very firm; stalk thick, firm, white or with brown or cinnamon-colored scales or fibers below ring; veil rather thick; spores white.
Where: On ground in woods and chaparral, especially in sandy soil under pine, fir, hemlock, Douglas fir, tanoak, madrone, chinquapin, and manzanita. Common from British Columbia to central California; also found in the Rocky Mountains and, rarely, in the Southwest. Harvested for export to Japan.
Edibility: Highly prized for its aroma and complex flavor.
Note: This mushroom, once smelled, is never forgotten. Be careful not to confuse it with white species of Amanita, which have a bulb and/or a volva at the base of the stalk, a different odor, and a more fragile ring.
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