Mushrooms of the genusVolvariella account for 16% of total production of cultivated mushrooms in the world.
The Paddy straw mushroom — Volvariella volvacea is well-known as the Paddy straw mushroom cultured in rice straw in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. This species also favors wood chip piles. Unfortunately, it is to easy to mistake the Death Cap mushroom, Amanita phalloides and other amanitas, for this edible species due to similarity in appearance. This mistake is the leading cause of mushroom poisoning in the United States. Volvariella and Amanita cannot be distinguished in the early "button stage", that, for many, is the "best" stage to collect Volvariella for consumption. Like Amanita, the Paddy straw has a volva, or universal veil, so called because it is a membrane that encapsulates the entire mushroom when it is young. This structure breaks apart as the mushroom expands, leaving parts that can be found at the base of the stalk as a cuplike structure.
The collection was a big surprise to me, since Volvariella is a genus that is centered in the tropics, with only a dozen or so species ranging into north-temperate areas and then only fruiting in warmer weather (though I have collected Volvariella speciosa in Illinois in late May).
One possibility is that I found a brownish variety of Volvariella bombycina--but the cap of my specimen is not prominently hairy, and it was not growing on wood.
Volvariella bakeri is also similar, but while it grows on wood or on the ground, it is distributed in the Caribbean and in Mexico (a difference made even more prominent by my April collection date), has a more prominently hairy cap, and has larger spores.
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