A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1083 entries
volva
A volva is the cup or sac at the base of certain mushrooms, the remains of the membrane that enclosed the whole fungus when it was an egg. As the stem elongates it tears the membrane, leaving a bag at the bottom and often patches or warts on top of the cap. In many species the volva sits below the soil surface and is invisible unless the mushroom is dug rather than cut.
Etymology
The word is Latin for a covering or a wrapper. It is one of the standard terms in the description of a mushroom alongside stipe, on this site, for the stem, pileus for the cap, and annulus for the ring, all of which are Latin and all of which were fixed early because a mushroom description has to be unambiguous.
Notes
This is the single most important structure in field mycology, because it is the character that identifies Amanita, the genus containing both excellent edible species and the most dangerous mushrooms in the world. The rule follows directly: Dig every white-gilled mushroom out whole rather than cutting the stem, because the thing that would tell you what you have is under the ground.