Tricholoma album

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***Tricholoma album***, commonly known as the **white knight**, is an all-white mushroom of the large genus *Tricholoma*. It is found in Europe, India, and possibly North America. The cap and gills are white. The whitish stipe has no ring.

## Taxonomy, naming, and classification

The species was originally described as *Agaricus albus* by Jacob Christian Schäffer in 1774, and reclassified as *Gyrophila alba* by mycologist Lucien Quélet in 1886. It was given its current binomial name by German Paul Kummer in 1871. The British Mycological Society has listed "white knight" as its common name. The generic name derives from the Greek *trichos*/τριχος 'hair' and *loma*/λωμα 'hem', 'fringe' or 'border', while the specific epithet is the Latin adjective *albus* "white".

The fungus is classified in the section *Lasciva* of the genus *Tricholoma*, characterised by species with a strong odor and acrid or bitter taste; an older classification has it placed in section *Inamoena*.

Marcel Bon named the variety *Tricholoma album* var. *thalliophilum* to account for those mushrooms that differed by staining blue-green with thallium oxide and sulfoformol; in the absence of additional differentiating characters, some later authors have questioned the taxonomical value of this characteristic.

## Description

The cap is Template:Convert wide and white with a pale yellow tinge, and more yellow or ochre in the centre as the fruit body ages. Convex with a slight boss, the cap is broadly conical in shape with inrolled margins. The white to pale yellow or ochre-tinged stipe is Template:Convert high and 0.8–1.5 cm wide and has no ring. There is no ring or volva. The mushroom has a prominent unpleasant sweet smell reminiscent of honey and radishes, and has an acrid and disagreeable taste. The thick gills are widely spaced with finely serrated edges. The spore print is white, the oval or oblong spores 5–7 μm long by 3.5–5 μm wide.

## Ecology, habitat and distribution

*Tricholoma album* is found across Europe, the fruit bodies appearing between August and December, in association with oak (*Quercus*) trees, with which they form a mycorrhizal relationship. Experiments have demonstrated that inoculating blue pine (*Pinus wallichiana*) and deodar (*Cedrus deodara*) seedlings with the fungus increases plant height and shoot and root biomass. The mushroom can be encountered growing in sizeable fairy rings. The presence of the mushroom in North America has not been confirmed. It has been reported from India in 2010.

## References

1. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Schaeffer1774`
2. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Quelet1886`
3. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Kummer1871`
4. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `BMS`
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Nilper1977`
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Nederlandica1999`
7. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Riva1988`
8. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Bon1970`
9. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Christensen1999`
10. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `MycoBank: Tricholoma album`
11. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Trappe1962`
12. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Dar2010`
13. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Kuo`
14. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `Hedawoo2010`

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